


Ego Te Ad Te Current

by trebleklef



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Title: Grace's Leokumi Disaster TM, Canonical Character Death, Dark Magic, Hoshido | Birthright Route, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Invisible Kingdom | Revelation Route, M/M, Multiple Universes Colliding, Nohr | Conquest Route, Time Travel, also changed the rating because its just violence not like... adult themes, because yknow birthright, im GUESSING BECAUSE LIKE DIFFERENT TIMELINES
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-07 00:27:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 38,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12829389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trebleklef/pseuds/trebleklef
Summary: Time and time again, he fails to save him. No matter how many times it takes... Leo will see that Takumi lives.





	1. Blood Oath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [qqtahng](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qqtahng/gifts).



> Hey so this Leokumi nightmare was inspired by Grace/ @qqtahng on twitter! This was originally her AU and gave me her blessing to bring it to life! She had this painful idea that is similar to Homura trying to save Madoka from pmmm. Mind you it ISNT solely based on that its just the way she explained it to me.

_“We’ll stay together forever, right?”_

_“Of course we will. I promise we will.”_

Leo could hear their conversation echoing in his head through the many battles he fought in the foreign land of Valla. The soldiers seemed to never fall and they just kept coming no matter how far they were beaten down. The battle felt as though it had no end.

He kept Takumi close, as being on horseback gave him an advantage. Leo pulled him atop the horse so that he could get a better shot at the enemies from above. They didn’t falter and they didn’t bleed. It was as if Takumi had been firing at ghosts in the air. He stood on the edges of the saddle, and it was mystifying to see Takumi balance himself on it like that.

Leo had been trying his best to steer his horse in the right direction, while keeping Takumi balanced. It was evident why Takumi had chosen to be a sniper rather than a kinshi knight. He had no way of keeping balanced on a mount on his own for long periods of time. He constantly leaned against Leo for support, placing his hands on Leo’s shoulders at any given interval. Leo slowed his horse as he approached a cliff, heart pounding in his throat. The anxiety from the fight was getting to him.

The lack of terrain was detrimental to the both of them, eventually getting cornered on one of the floating islands in the sky. Takumi gently hopped off the horse and held Leo’s hand gently for a moment, as if telling him it was going to be okay. Leo gently grazed his thumb over the steel band on Takumi’s finger that he had forged. Takumi had wanted a physical object to signify their promise, and Leo had snuck into the forge one late night to make his dream a reality.

The two had promised to make their bond official when all the fighting was over, and it was that promise that kept Leo fighting as hard as he did. He wanted to be with Takumi forever. There was nothing else he wanted.

“We’ll be fine,” Leo said, his voice wavering. His anxieties were starting to mount up as he hopped off his horse, still holding onto his lover’s hand.

“I know we will be,” Takumi replied, tightening his grip. Leo couldn’t help but melt a little in Takumi’s smile.

Takumi’s eyes then darted to the skies, watching for anything on the horizon. From where they were located, no foot soldiers could reach them. Leo felt as though he could breathe a sigh of relief as Takumi’s grip on his bow loosened.

“Looks like we’re okay for now… unless reinforcements arrive,” Takumi said with a half hearted sigh.

“That’s a likely happenstance,” Leo said, straightening out his saddle. “We’ll have to use a dragon vein to get back to the main island.”

“Wait a second Leo,” Takumi said, placing his hand over Leo’s on the saddle.

“We can’t just leave the others right now, we’re still in the heat of battle,” Leo said, turning his head to see Takumi give him a soft smile, follows by a soft kiss. A quiet chuckle escaped Leo.

“They can handle themselves for a moment,” Takumi said, cupping Leo’s face in his hands. “We’ve been at this for hours we need a moment to breathe.”

“I can’t believe you wore your ring under your gauntlets,” Leo said, a laugh to follow.

For a moment he swore he could feel Takumi’s hands trembling. Leo placed a hand over Takumi’s and cooed softly. “What’s eating you?”

“I just… have this sinking feeling,” Takumi said, his gaze shifting to the dirt at their feet. “A sinking feeling that… we’re not going to make it home.”

“Nothing bad is going to happen Takumi. I swear to you,” Leo said, lifting Takumi’s chin with his free hand. He then kissed Takumi out of reassurance. “I’ll protect you when the need arises. I don’t doubt that you can fight your way out of anything because you are quick witted and strong, but if things look bleak I will be there to fight life and limb for you.”

“Leo…” Takumi murmured, resting his forehead in the nape of Leo’s neck.

The distant sound of flapping wings caught Takumi by surprise and he bolted around to see a Falcon Knight along the horizon. He quickly grabbed his bow from the ground and fired an arrow in the direction of the Pegasus. The flier quickly avoided the arrow and started to fly in from a different angle; at _Leo_. He was struggling to on his horse, due to the flapping wings spooking the horse. Once he saw the naginata the knight was using, he knew he had to act fast. A single strike would kill Leo if he didn’t act fast enough.

Takumi fired another couple of arrows at the knight, missing by mere inches. Leo cast his tome quickly in the direction of the knight, tripping over a large root and missing. He flinched, putting up his arm in pitiful defense. Takumi bolted directly in front of him out of panic.

Leo opened his eyes to see Takumi standing in front of him as a dark shadow. He could only make out the tip of the naginata through Takumi’s stomach. A cold feeling of dread began to wash over Leo as he saw the Falcon Knight retreat, leaving its weapon behind. The weapon soon vanished as well. Takumi then collapsed backward into Leo’s lap, blood pouring out of the wound. Leo tried his best to act fast, tearing a part of Takumi’s sleeve to put over the wound with pressure.

“You’re going to be okay, I swear to you you’re going to be okay!” Leo said, his hands shaking over the makeshift bandage.

Takumi weakly put his hand over Leo’s. Leo‘s attention darted to Takumi’s face. The sad smile that Takumi gave him was enough to drive him to tears, desperately clutching Takumi’s hand with his own.

“Why did you do that? Why take the hit?” Leo said, practically choking on tears.

“I couldn’t let you get hurt,” Takumi said with barely enough strength. “I wanted to protect _you_.”

“No, no more talking please save your energy I cannot lose you,” Leo pleaded, squeezing Takumi’s hand tighter. “I won’t lose you! I refuse to lose you!”

“Leo…” Takumi said, trying to grip onto Leo.

“Not after what we promised… not like this…” Leo said, resting his head against Takumi’s chest crestfallen.

“Leo… theres something I want you too…” Takumi paused, choking on blood rising in his throat. “No… I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything! I would do anything!” Leo cried.

“Then… I want to see you smile for me… one last time,” Takumi said, his eyes drooping slightly.

“It won’t be the last time please hang on for me!” Leo said, dropping Takumi’s hand to cup his face with both hands. He left bloody handprints on Takumi’s face to not fault of his own.

“I can’t Leo…” Takumi trailed off.

Leo then kissed Takumi, unbeknownst it could have been the last time no matter how much he refutted it in his mind. He couldn’t help but choke down the taste of blood in Takumi’s mouth; it was bitter and hard to take. As much as he didn’t want to, Leo pulled away and could only see the light start to slowly fade from Takumi’s eyes.

“I love you…” He said, weakly placing a hand on Leo’s face.

Leo was too overwhelmed with tears to respond back coherently. He couldn’t help but burst into loud sobs. “I love you too.”

It tore Leo’s heart out to see the light in Takumi’s eyes fade. He sobbed harder against Takumi’s chest, gripping onto the silken fabric of his armor as tight as he could. The loss in his heart was too much for him to bear, he cried out loudly only muffled by the layers of fabric.

Soon the familiar flapping returned. Leo swallowed his sobs and looked up to see that the Falcon Knight had returned. Anger soon replaced his sadness, and it burned inside of him. He picked up his tome and looked up at the flier with eyes of fire. The Vallite illusion looked at him curiously as he flipped through the tome biting his lip hard enough to bleed.

“Curse you… How dare the likes of you take him away from me…” he murmured before slamming his hand down on the correct page. “I’ll torch you alive!”

He bothered not with an incantation. His despair fueled the fire spell enough to surround the flier in a whirlwind of flames that has swallowed it whole. Soon enough, the Pegasus and its rider had been torched to cinders. The ashes fell to the ground and scattered around Takumi’s bow. Leo hesitated before picking it up and holding it close. Rage burned behind his eyes until it stung. He yelled out in anguish and the echoes eventually disappeared into thin air.

His gaze shifted to Takumi, his eyes still hauntingly open. Leo swallowed a sob and closed them with his fingers delicately. He then placed the bow next to his tome. He brushed Takumi’s bangs off his forehead and kissed his forehead softly. Takumi was still so incredibly warm, and it ate at Leo more and more.

He then looked at his tome. It had been glowing alongside Fujin Yumi for some time now. It was as if Takumi’s weapon had been trying to tell him something. It had been unclear, but he soon grasped the concept.

“You… want me to save your wielder…” he murmured, picking up the bow. “You very well know I would have tried other way…”

He placed the bow gently on the ground and picked up Brynhildr. He figured if it gave him mastery over space… then time could have been an option as well.

“You’ve granted me mastery of gravity… therefore space…” he murmured to the tome, flipping through its pages. “Grant me power over time. That is my one request of you.”

He flipped through the pages over and over, begging the divine weapon to provide him with a feasible solution. Fujin Yumi only began to glow brighter and brighter the more he begged his own weapon.

“What do you want I’m trying!” He cried to the bow.

Soon the pages of the tome flipped on their own to a page with an option; a hope. However it was black magic at its finest, requiring sacrifice in order to be cast. He read over the page carefully, and the risks suddenly didn’t seem that heavy.

“A blood sacrifice upon incantation… and a circle,” he murmured, flipping the page over to see if there was more to it.

“A blood… sacrifice,” he looked at Takumi, colour starting to fade from his face. Leo bit his lip, trying to fight back tears as much as he could. “A blood pact then.”

Leo fished around in Takumi’s sleeve for the wakazashi he kept handy in times of close combat. It was where he thought it would be, readily unsheathed. Leo removed his gauntlet and pierced his hand with the blade, barely flinching at the pain. He then placed his bleeding hand into the pool of blood that had been slowly forming around Takumi’s body.

“With this act I swear to you…” he began, struggling to keep his voice clear and calm. “With this act I swear to you that I will go back in time and save you from this fate. That is my sworn duty to you and my sole promise.”

His gaze shifted to his own ring, soon covered in crimson. “I will make our dream come true!”

A harsh light soon surrounded Leo, much to his shock. The pages of Brynhildr began to turn on their own in a harsh gust of wind. Leo brought an arm to his face, shielding his eyes from the harsh light. Soon he realized that he was being lifted away from Takumi’s body. He blinked away tears, realizing that his incantation would fix the situation in the end.

It was all he could pray for.


	2. Change

As the light faded, Leo found himself on the Hoshido plains. He opened his eyes to see Camilla and Elise on their respective mounts before him. They both looked behind them at Leo with a look on concern.

“Hey, is everything okay Leo?” Elise asked.

Leo looked at them, rather confused. He must have made some kind of strange sound to cause their concern.

“Yes… Yes I’m fine… may have spaced off for a bit,” Leo said, raising a hand to his head. “Do you mind filling me in? What’s happening?”

“Our darling Corrin is coming home with us,” Camilla said, a little bit too cheery for Leo’s liking.

“Wait…” Leo said, a slow sickening feeling starting to freeze over him. “Corrin… chose Nohr?”

“Yep!” Elise replied, running her fingers through her horse’s mane. “They’re coming home with us!”

Leo felt sick. Corrin hadn’t made that decision before. Corrin had refused to take sides. Why were they taking sides now? Why now? What did he do wrong?

_What did I do wrong? Everything is different. Corrin chose Nohr. They weren’t supposed to choose us. Why now? Why NOW? What happens now? I can’t predict anything. It’s all new. I can’t fix it! What if I can’t save him?_

**_What if I can’t save him!?_ **

Leo took tight hold of the reigns in his left hand and bit down on his lip, thoughts racing. He bit down hard enough to draw blood. It ate at him how he came back to the wrong time and he couldn’t figure out why. He glared at the tome in his hand and cursed it for failing him.

Camilla dismounted from her wyvern and walked over to her younger brother, a look of concern tore him from his anger.

“Leo? Is everything alright?” She asked, placing her hand on Leo’s, which had been gripping the reigns tight enough to lose circulation.

“Its… fine Camilla… I have a theory to test,” Leo said, raising the reigns and bringing them down hard, signalling the horse to start trotting forward, passed the dried up river and passed the bridge. Leo had to confirm it for himself. He had to confirm that things had changed.

 He was close enough to see Takumi on a Pegasus with his elder sister. He knew that calling out to Takumi would be futile; the time had changed back to what it was before. By some kind of magic he could make Takumi remember. He couldn’t have completely reset everything.

As he got closer, Takumi fired his bow at the horse’s feet, spooking the poor animal and in turn it threw Leo to the ground before running off. Leo landed right on his back, knocking the wind out of him. He coughed harshly, squinting at the magic arrow pointed at his face.

“Why did you advance?” Takumi asked, keeping the arrow pointed at Leo.

Leo eyed Takumi carefully, gaze shifting from the blue, glowing arrow to Takumi’s harsh expression. He remembered how Takumi used to look at him like that. It was almost heartbreaking to see him look at Leo like that again.

“I had no intention of harming you or your family,” Leo explained, his voice sounding strained.

Takumi pulled his bowstring back further, suspicious of the other prince. “Why?”

“Its… its hard to explain. There’s so much that no one here knows or can even begin to understand,” Leo said, moving Takumi’s aim down to the ground. The arrow stung in his hand, even against the gauntlets he wore.

The sound of large wings flapping tore Takumi’s gaze away from Leo. He too looked behind him to see Camilla rushing to his aid. He never well knew Camilla had the means to kill Takumi on the spot, and a sickening chill ran through his entire body.

“Camilla! Don’t attack him!” Leo yelled.

Both Hinoka and Takumi looked at Leo in confusion and disgust. It was almost an insult to the Hoshidans. It was as if Leo had assumed that they were weak and could not fight back.

“What the hell is going on?!” Takumi yelled, pointing his arrow back at Leo, close enough to shoot him at point blank.

“It’s hard to explain!” Leo yelled in response. “I don’t even know if I can explain it!”

“Then shut up and fight me!” Takumi yelled, his grip on the magic arrow tightening.

“I can’t Takumi!” Leo felt his heart in his throat and it hurt.

“Why? Because you think I’m weak and you’re taking pity on me?!” Takumi yelled, practically spitting his words at the other prince.

“No! I don’t want to harm you in any way!” Leo struggled to keep his voice from wavering. It hurt him so much for Takumi to yell insults and insinuate that Leo thought him as weak. It was the opposite but Leo knew he couldn’t just blurt that out now with little to no explanation.

“This is war you idiot! I don’t understand your adamant wish not to fight back! Are you really that stupid that you’re ready to just throw your life away?” Takumi yelled, soon tossing his bow aside and kneeling down to Leo’s level, gripping his collar harshly. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Leo couldn’t find words. He stared at Takumi, helplessly trying to find the correct words to explain his actions without giving away everything he had done. He would have sounded mad if he simply explained that Takumi had died and he came back in time to save him because he loved him.

“Answer me you idiot!” Takumi said, throwing a punch against Leo’s left cheek.

“You wouldn’t understand it,” Leo said, quietly and heartbroken.

“Don’t insult me!” Takumi punched Leo again. “I’m not an idiot!”

“I know you’re not… That’s the problem,” Leo said, avoiding eye contact. “If I explained everything you’d think of me as a mad man and that wouldn’t fix a damn thing now would it?”

“I already think of you as a mad man since you won’t fight back!” Takumi gripped at Leo’s collar hard enough to almost rip it off him.

“Will you stop insisting that I fight you and just listen to me for a minute?” Leo said, raising his voice. “There’s an obvious reason as to why! Figure it out! You’re not an idiot!”

Takumi’s grip on Leo’s collar loosened. He was confused and frustrated at what Leo was struggling to hint at. He looked at Leo with anger, but not as harsh as before. He looked at Leo with anger, but not as harsh as before. It was almost like abject confusion as he tried to figure out what Leo meant.

“Leo this is unacceptable. What on earth were you planning?” Camilla said, her tone was poisonous and harsh. She harshly grabbed Leo’s arm and raised him to his feet. Takumi’s fingers slipped off Leo’s collar as he was raised to his feet. Her grip hurt, even against his armor. “I thought you were above this childishness.”

The chill he had first felt was soon replaced by a burning anger, enough to make him shake. It wasn’t childish. He knew it wasn’t. Camilla didn’t understand. No one understood what was happening and he couldn’t flat out tell them either. He knew better, but it still ate at him that there was almost nothing he could do.

“Come now, I see that Xander has been successful,” She said, dragging Leo away from the situation by the heels.

Leo looked at Takumi almost helplessly and heartbroken. Takumi looked on at Leo confused, until something dawned upon him. Leo couldn’t tell what his expression turned into due to the distance between them, but he couldn’t help but hold onto hope that Takumi soon understood what was happening, even in subtlety. He knew Takumi was intelligent. It was one of the things that drew Leo to love him after all.

                *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *

“This is all your fault!”

Corrin looked at their so called ‘brother’ with a hurt expression.

“M-My fault? What do you mean?” their voice wavered.

“You made everything a lot harder than it could have been! Do you even understand what kind of mess you caused?!” Leo yelled, loud enough for his other siblings to hear.

“Leo what is the meaning of this?!” Xander’s voice boomed through the room.

Leo flinched at his brother’s loud voice. He could feel Xander’s anger as he walked into the room. He looked down at Leo with a look of disgust.

“What do you mean ‘a lot harder than it could have been’ Leo? Are you implying that Corrin coming home has somehow inconvenienced you? You really think that of your own family?” Xander’s voice sounded so much harsher than it usually did.

“N-No… I mean,” Leo stammered, struggling to find a viable explanation.

“Blood or not Corrin is your sibling and I won’t have you treat them in such a fashion,” Xander continued,  not giving Leo a chance to offer any kind of explanation. “After your behaviour today, I very much doubt you have much to say to someone who was literally held against a sword to make a very difficult choice.”

“None of you understand and I can’t explain it the way I want you!” Leo yelled back, feeling Xander’s comment stab at his pride more than he liked.

“Enough Leo! I thought you were above this childish behaviour!” Xander replied, his voice easily booming and overpowering Leo’s.

“It’s not childish!!! Stop accusing me of such!” Leo yelped, his pride hurt further by the accusations.

Xander frowned harshly at Leo, soon raising a hand against his younger brother. Corrin let out a yelp as Xander’s fist connected against Leo’s cheek. Leo could taste blood soon after, knowing that that was the hardest Xander had ever hit him, even if it was only once before. Corrin’s eyes went wide when they saw that Leo was bleeding from the hit.

“Enough of this! What you are doing and implying to Corrin could very well be written off as treason!” Xander yelled, his words sounding more like a threat rather  than an actual fact.

“Treason, huh? Are we really going to throw that word out on to the playing field now?” Leo said, wiping some of the blood that dripped out of his mouth off his chin. He could feel Xander’s stare burn hotter and hotter the more he spoke.

He laughed sadly, looking at his brother and so called sibling. “I wish I could find an appropriate reasoning for all this but the more I try the worse things become.”

“What?” Corrin asked, struggling to cool the tension between the two brothers.

“Forget it. The risk of getting hit again is not worth the trouble,” Leo said, rubbing his jaw painfully.

He could tell immediately after his statement that Xander felt regret for his actions, but Leo’s pride was too sore for him to even give the look the time of day.

“I’ll be in the library if you need me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAHAH you can definitely tell what was my insp for the last part. Anywho, i'm going to update this and To Kill A King as regular as possible. Loyalty Undying only has one more chapter and possibly an epilogue but its based on something and its kind of grueling to get details right and takes a LOT LONGER... if i can push out some of these guys first then i will get back to ASAP. But for now, get ready for pain here and fluffy pain in To Kill A King. Also i might throw out some Change of Fate to explain some headcanons in To Kill A King. But eh thats all future stuff. This guy here though, oho the pain is just beginning. Thanks Grace >;3c


	3. Monsters

Leo rested his head against the large oak table in the library. His head was pounding and the taste of blood in his mouth was sickening. He rested his hand on his cheek, swollen from the hit. He could feel the pain in his teeth and wanted nothing more than for it to pass. It didn’t help that Takumi had punched him there earlier as well. It was extremely painful even to the touch.

The only thing that hurt more was the situation he had been thrown into. He had no idea what kind of things were to come, and it both aggravated and terrified him. How hard would he have to work for this?

“I heard that you took quite the hit from your brother,” Niles said, leaning on the doorframe.

“It hurts… a lot,” Leo said, muffled by the table and his own hand. “It’s not like getting stabbed or burned. That pain only lasts a little while. I wish he just stabbed me so I could stop feeling it after a while.”

“You don’t want that milord,” Niles sighed. Leo groaned into the table.

“Need me to get something for it?” he asked, walking into the room, placing his hand on Leo’s back gently.

“A vulnerary… or elixir,” Leo groaned, moving his head slightly so he could see his retainer. “Elixir is preferred… more effective.”

Niles then placed an elixir gently on the table. Leo was surprised to say the least.

“How did you get that so fast?” Leo asked, sounding dumbfounded.

“I already figured you needed something for the pain… so I may have picked this up from your sister. Lady Elise heard the whole thing and suggested that I hand this over to you,” Niles said, pulling a chair away from the table and taking a seat.

Leo lifted his head from the table and Niles couldn’t help but wince at the swelling and bruising on the left side of Leo’s face. A trail of blood from his mouth stained his face down to his chin. His nose was still bleeding a little. It looked a lot worse than it was, but Leo seemed to be in an immense amount of pain just by looking at him. “Gods I didn’t think he hit you _that_ hard.”

“I bled quite a bit from my mouth and nose,” Leo said, pointing at his nose and cheek. “I feel like if I move my face in any way it’s going to start bleeding again. I mean my nose is still bleeding…” He trailed off, noticing the blood drip from his nose onto the table. “He doesn’t know his own strength when he’s mad.”

“What did you even say to make him hit you like that?” Niles asked, opening the elixir for Leo. “Also he’s your brother. He shouldn’t be hitting you at all.”

Leo looked down sadly. “It wouldn’t be the first time he hit me hard like that.”

Niles placed his own hand over Leo’s. “Why did he hit you?”

“Its… complicated Niles. I don’t even know if I can tell you,” Leo said, applying the elixir to his face and the inside of his cheek. The swelling went down considerably and the bruise healed enough for his face to look like a discoloration more than a bruise.

“Magic related?” Niles asked.

“How did you guess?” Leo asked, a little dumbfounded at how easily his retainer could read him.

“Your hand is all cut up as well,” Niles pointed out.

Leo looked down at his hand. He noticed the cut he had made with Takumi’s wakizashi. He then looked up at Niles, almost in defeat. He couldn’t believe that the cut still remained, even after time was reset. He supposed it was due to the fact that he didn’t change; the world around him changed instead.

“I don’t know if a breach of the oath if I tell you,” he said, with a sigh.

“Breach of… oath? What the hell?” Niles asked, clear concern on his face. “Don’t tell me you’re doing things for Iago again. I thought you told me you’d never mess with that kind of magic ever again.”

“Hell no,” Leo said. “I would sooner take a dagger to the thigh than deal with his damned magic again.”

“Then what Leo? What kind of magic requires an oath?” Niles asked, dropping the honorific out of concern.

“Manipulation of time,” Leo said bluntly. “Since Brynhildr can manipulate space, I figured that I could… and I succeeded.”

Niles was dumbfounded. He grabbed Leo’s hand to look at the severity of the wound. He looked it over with a look of dread and concern on his face. Leo winced and quickly withdrew his hand as Niles poked at the wound.

“If you manipulated time… then you’re not the same Leo that I’ve known?” Niles asked, suspicious.

“I’m the same person across time and space. The only difference is experiences,” Leo said.

“If you manipulated time, then you’re trying to change something aren’t you?” Niles asked.

“Things have already changed,” Leo said, putting his wounded hand on his tome gently. “The entire world around me has already changed. I cannot tell you what’s going to happen next because Corrin’s decision has changed the entire course of history.”

“Why did you come back in time then?” Niles asked.

Leo remained silent. He felt as though explaining would worsen the situation even more and could possibly ruin his chances of succeeding. He sighed heavily and looked at Niles sadly.

“You’ll think ill of me if I told you,” Leo said, avoiding eye contact after his statement.

“I won’t think ill of you milord,” Niles said, reassuring Leo. He looked at Leo softly, a small smile an offering of someone to confide in.

Leo sighed. “I’m in love with the young Hoshidan prince. We made a promise to each other… that after the war was finished that we’d…” he trailed off, choking back tears as memories flooded into his head. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Takumi had said to him, as he lay dying in his arms.

“I’m going to assume this war wasn’t between Nohr and Hoshido then,” Niles said, keeping his voice as gentle as possible.

“No… and I can’t tell you about it due to a supposed curse that will make me disappear if I say its name even in utterances,” Leo said, struggling to keep his voice steady.

“Damn,” Niles said. “It wouldn’t be in any books either?”

“No. Its name could kill you so I doubt that they would put anything about it in any literature,” Leo said, referencing the books about history for both Nohr and Hoshido on the shelf behind him.

“Strange,” Niles added, standing up to look at the books on the shelf.

Suddenly the two young men heard running in the hallway outside the library. Leo stood up abruptly from the table to get a good look at the commotion. Several soldiers were running through the hallway, headed directly towards the entrance of the castle. Niles and Leo looked at each other in suspicion, and decided to follow the soldiers.

Leo saw Corrin leaving the castle, telling the soldiers that they would be fine on their own on a mission that the king had given them. They told each and every one of them that they would be fine, and Leo hated himself for hoping that Corrin would not make it back.

Niles placed a hand on Leo’s shoulder and he was startled by the touch.

“Don’t,” he said, implying that Leo’s hate was unnecessary. “You’ll regret feeling that way later. You’ll start to feel as though it was your fault if things go awry.”

Leo sighed, silently admitting defeat.

“Use this time to investigate what you can. If you want to save the Hoshidan Prince, use your resources to your advantage. That includes Odin and I,” Niles said, pointing behind him to imply Odin was somewhere nearby.

“I might spend some time in the Woods of the Forlorn. No one will bother looking for me there and won’t pester me,” Leo said, grimacing at the thought of dealing with the countless Faceless. “I’ll have to bend those monsters to my will.”

“Take Odin with you,” Niles suggested. “If anything he can learn a few things from you.”

“True, he could use some lessons in magic,” Leo said thoughtfully.

“What do you want me to investigate?” Niles asked, moving the subject along.

“I want you to do some investigation in Cheve. Everything usually goes wrong in Cheve and I have a bad feeling about it. Also I know of a woman there that is against the principles of Nohrian rule, specifically my father. However, you are not to harm this woman or even interact with her if at all possible,” Leo explained.

“Hrm, careful how loud you get with that information milord,” Niles said, shushing Leo quickly. “The walls have ears.”

“Why do you think I’m only telling you? Odin is a good man, but he’s not very good at keeping his mouth shut,” Leo replied.

“Is there any other details I should know of this woman?” Niles asked, keeping his voice hushed.

“Her name is Scarlet. As her name implies she wears solid red armor. I trust that you’ll appear to be enough of a threat. Her domain is the sky,” Leo whispered.

“That’s a weird way of saying that she’s a wyvern rider,” Niles whispered, trying his best to keep his voice down through his laughter.

“Excuse me being cryptic. The walls have ears, don’t they?” Leo said slyly.

Niles couldn’t help but grin. “Damn, you really are picking up some of my mannerisms after all.”

*             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *

The Woods of the Forlorn were almost suffocating to be near. A thick fog settled on the forest floor, and killed everything that tried to grow. The trees were leafless and stood dead among the stone effigies built by some of the dark mages in the area. The ground was covered in dead plants that died from the fog. They would crunch and crackle beneath footsteps, making it hard to sneak by the hundreds of Faceless and other monsters that made the forest their home. The Faceless were drawn to the overbearing aura of black magic emanating from the area. Other creatures were drawn to it as well, such as undead animals that dark mages would create for practice, hoping to hone their skills enough to either raise the dead or summon Faceless for the Nohrian army.

Leo shuddered as he entered the forest. The atmosphere was depressing, and it settled into his bones as he wandered further, looking for the mansion that lied within the deep woods. It was rumoured that a large structure stood amongst the dead trees and poisonous bogs. He kept his tome close to him, ready to defend himself against anything that would cross his path. He kept a sword on his waist in the event he would need it. He knew that certain creatures could have been resistant to magic. He knew better than to enter the woods without several means of protection.

The grunts of growls of the hoards of Faceless were around every corner. Leo was a fool not to wear his armor, but the sound would attract more enemies than he could handle. He wore his old dark mage robes, and they were hardly protective. He had no authority to wear something akin to a sorcerer; despite how many times Odin claimed it to be okay. He didn’t want to go through the necessary ceremony for class change that everyone else had to go through. There simply wasn’t enough time. He had no idea how much time he had or didn’t have. He knew he would get some answers in the mansion, for it stood upon magic grounds. He knew that it would have some of the answers in which he sought.

He didn’t hold much hope for the books being legible if not destroyed. The mansion had been standing for hundreds of years, even when the kingdom was young. He knew of its history from a few books in the library of the castle, but those were mostly rumours and legends. He trusted Odin to do some of the background checking on the mansion. He had been excited to, and relayed almost all the information he could find on it to Leo.

_It’s been standing for hundreds of years!_ He had said. _Its oozing with magic! I wish I could go with you!_

Several instincts within him told him that he should have taken Odin with him. It was almost insane not to take a second able fighter, but Leo knew that Odin was terrible at stealth. He would fight anything they came across and that would be like suicide in this forest.

Soon enough, Leo came across the mansion. It had been covered in vines and looked as though it had been left to decay. He quickly and quietly ran up the steps and tried the door. He swore when he found it had been locked. He wished he had brought both of his retainers now. Both of their skill sets would have been useful for this mission. Luckily Niles had provided Leo with a few lockpicks in case of emergency. Leo fiddled with the lock for a solid ten minutes before managing to get it unlocked. He paused, listening for groans and grunts of the monsters from the forest. The silence was a sign to continue on. He opened the door quietly to see a grand foyer. The ceiling had caved in on the main staircase. Books had been sprawled across the floor, decaying along with the woolen carpets. The smell of mold was intense, and Leo coughed through his hand at the stench.

He wandered through the foyer carefully, knowing each step could easily cause him to fall through the floor. The wood was rotten and soaked with water from the poisonous bogs. He reached for some of the books on the shelves that were still intact. He found a couple on potion making, and one on fixing broken weapons. He tossed them aside in frustration. This wasn’t what he was looking for.

After the books had fallen to the floor, Leo heard a creak from the other side of the foyer. He froze, thinking that a Faceless could have followed him into the mansion. Or worse, Iago or another one of the castle mages could have followed him in. He opened his tome, carefully tracing his finger across a line of text. A shadow like ball of energy appeared in his hand, slowly growing larger as time went on.

“Show yourself! I know you’re here!” He yelled, slowly releasing that his loud voice could have been dangerous.

Slowly from the shadows, a familiar figure approached holding an all too familiar bow.

“W-What are you doing here?!” Leo yelped, almost out of surprise and embarrassment to be caught in such a ridiculous outfit.

Leo received no answer from Takumi as he slowly approached, worrying not about the rotting floor beneath his feet. Leo hopped off the shelf carefully and looked on at Takumi in worried horror as he approached.

“Careful the floor isn’t sturdy!” He warned.

Suddenly an arrow of light flew passed his face and hit the bookshelf behind him. Leo could feel his heart beating in his throat. He knew how defenceless he was, but this was going to be harder than he had anticipated.

He then noticed that a purple aura shrouded Takumi’s figure in the pale light. This was something Leo had never seen. Something was wrong. This wasn’t right.

“Kill… kill…” Takumi murmured, his voice hoarse and venomous.

Another figure appeared from the darkness, and Leo could feel the heat of his hatred burning in his chest. Iago had followed him as well.

“Well, well, well it’s been a while since I’ve seen you adorn that outfit milord,” Iago said, his voice sounding like nails on a piece of slate.

“You conniving little leech,” Leo seethed. “What in the Gods names are you doing here?”

“Spare me the pleasantries, we both know you don’t believe in any gods that reign over us,” Iago replied, eyeing the young prince carefully.

Leo’s eyes darted between the walking corpse of a mage and Takumi, who seemed like a puppet in Iago’s control.

“What did you do to him?” Leo asked, trying his best to suppress any anger he felt.

“Don’t you think its wonderful?” Iago asked, placing a hand on Takumi’s shoulder. Leo wanted to yell at Iago not to touch him, but held his tongue.

“Thanks to Lord Garon’s audience with our divine Anankos, we have ourselves an ally behind enemy lines,” Iago cooed, fluttering his hands all around Takumi. “His mental fortitude was weak enough to take complete control. He’s much stronger than the crown prince, so this was almost too easy-“

“Back away from him!” Leo yelled, his rage boiling over.

Iago didn’t move, staring at Leo with a sly smile. “And why should I milord? Are you committing treason against your own kind?”

“My own kind wouldn’t do something so vile you wretch!” Leo yelled, practically spitting through his teeth. “You aren’t a mage; you’re a demon of the worst kind!”

“Hrm, I wonder why you’re getting so emotionally involved in this Prince Leo,” Iago said, his words sounding more and more tormenting as time went on. “Don’t tell me you’re in love with this creature?”

Leo held his tongue and avoided eye contact with the other mage. He stood still, feeling the anger burn in his chest. “No. No I’m not.”

“Hrm… that’s not what I’m getting from your actions,” Iago said, tracing his spider like fingers along Takumi’s cheek.

The anger that Leo felt was almost enough to make him explode. Every time Iago dared to lay his filthy fingers on Takumi he wanted to break every single one of them off.

“The best part is how easily he bends to any whim! Go on and try it for yourself,” Iago said, pushing the Hoshidan prince over to Leo. “In fact, why don’t you take him for a spin for the rest of today? Have him defeat some Faceless to test his abilities.”

Takumi stared at Leo blankly, his once amber eyes stained a glowing red from Iago’s control. It broke Leo’s heart into several pieces to see Takumi like this. As soon as Iago left, Leo placed both of his hands on Takumi’s shoulder’s gently, staring firmly into his eyes. He wanted to try and break Takumi out of this trance.

“Takumi, look at me. Really look at me. Look at this ridiculous thing I’m wearing. Laugh at me, call it stupid, call me stupid,” Leo said, lightly shaking the other prince. “Whatever you do just do it as you.”

It took several minutes of shaking and talking for Takumi to take control again. He looked at Leo, frightened. His eyes then darted around the foyer, and then darted back to Leo. His breathing was uneasy and fast. Leo could feel the other prince shaking underneath his grip.

“W-Where am I? Did you bring me here?” Takumi’s fear soon turned into anger.

“No I didn’t. It was a horrendous mage named Iago. He’s a horrible person and I’m sorry for what he did to you,” Leo said, removing his hands from Takumi’s shoulders.

“All… All I remember is being near the border… At the Bottomless Canyon,” Takumi said, his voice still a little shaky and squeaky.

“I’m going to get you home okay?” Leo said. “I’ll get you to the border.”

“Y-you’d do that? But… the war,” Takumi replied.

“I don’t care Takumi… This entire war is stupid and I don’t give a damn about it,” Leo said.

“I… I don’t understand,” Takumi said, looking at Leo.

“I… honestly expect you to,” Leo said, looking at the decrepit floor. “I’ve done a lot so far, and I know that I’m going to have to go a lot further. I feel as if I fully explain to you I’ll destroy everything I’ve done.”

Takumi looked at Leo with both horror and confusion. “It sounds… like some kind of Nohrian dark magic. I’d rather not know.”

“I don’t blame you after what Iago has done,” Leo sighed.

“W-what did he do?” Takumi asked, his voice wavering.

“You mean you don’t remember?” Leo asked, concerned.

“No… like I said, I only remember the Bottomless Canyon and now I’m here in this…” he paused. “Place.”

Leo sighed heavily. “Just watch your step as you leave. The floor boards are rotting.”

Something ate at Leo. He very well knew he couldn’t go on in this time. He knew that were was nothing he could do to save Takumi here. The only way he knew he could save him…

… Was to kill him.


	4. Red String

The situation had turned dire a lot faster than Leo had wanted it to. He returned to the castle in silence. He had sent an escort to make sure that Takumi returned to Hoshido unharmed, and could only hope that the escort actually did his job properly. Leo did, however, threaten the escort with the very real consequence of execution if any harm were to come to the prince.

The image of Takumi under that kind of control haunted him. He was pale and lifeless, while his eyes were blood red and sickening to stare into. It ached that Iago could do such a thing. Leo knew that Iago was very well capable of taking control of people, he had seen it before. It was a disturbing form of magic that he found disgusting and cowardly.

Leo had taken some books from the mansion in the Woods of the Forlorn to study from. They ranged from the magic of possession to the magic of time. He only sought the ones regarding time to begin with, but the recent events changed his goals. He wanted to undo any sort of magic that Iago had placed Takumi under. If he could that is.

Leo spent days in the library, only hearing of how far Corrin travelled by word of mouth from Niles and several other soldiers. He was running on borrowed time as Corrin moved closer and closer to Hoshido. They were nearing Cheve, and Leo knew of a rebellion that was brewing there.

“Milord we have to make a move soon,” Niles said, rushing into the library and closing the doors behind him.

“I know that they are nearing Cheve to silence the rebellion,” Leo said, urgency evident in his voice. “How fast can we get there?”

“By wyvern would be the ideal,” Niles replied. “It could take days by horse.”

“Dammit!” Leo swore, slamming his fist down on the table. “I don’t want to have to ask Camilla to take us there!”

“You… you won’t have to,” Niles said, hinting at someone being behind the door.

The door swung open to reveal Xander, who had been listening to the entire conversation.

“X-Xander!” Leo yelled in surprise, standing up from the table.

“Leo, I heard that you went into the Woods of the Forlorn. You very well know that is forbidden,” Xander said, his disappointment stabbing at Leo repeatedly.

“I’m guessing that _snake_ Iago told you,” Leo seethed.

“No actually, it was father that told me,” Xander replied.

Leo froze. He avoided eye contact with his brother and stared at the tiles beneath his feet. Xander walked closer and forced Leo to remain in eye contact with him, holding his face in one place.

“So Iago told _him_ ,” Leo muttered to himself.

“What are you doing? Do you intend to betray your family and country?” Xander kept his voice down, knowing that his words could very well warrant soldiers and guards to storm the room. “What do you intend to do Leo? You need to tell me.”

Leo smacked Xander’s hand away from his face. He had been gripping Leo’s jaw hard enough to cause a throbbing pain that was unbearable. He looked at his brother in both anger and betrayal. Xander glanced down at the books that Leo had been studying. One was open and he couldn’t understand the text that had been written. Another book clearly stated it was about time manipulation.

“Time… magic?” Xander asked, his anger subsiding a little.

“S-Someone I love… is in danger,” Leo stammered, struggling to keep his voice down. “I might have to kill them myself in order to save them.”

He kept the identity of the person ambiguous. If Xander knew it was Takumi, the situation could turn against him quickly.

“Gods Leo…” Xander said, putting his hand over his mouth in shock. “Is that why you were in the Woods of the Forlorn?”

“I don’t know if I can save them… If I had to go back again- Hell if I have to go back a hundred times, I will! I made a promise…” Leo felt a sob rise in his throat and did his best to keep it down. “I can’t break that promise!”

Xander could see his little brother slowly devolve into tears. He knew that whatever Leo was going through was much bigger than he could imagine and decided not to question him. “If its Cheve you need to go to, we can get you there as fast as we can.”

“Really? Even if I told you that the person I love is Hoshidan?” Leo asked, testing his brother’s support.

Xander paused, then sighed. “If that is the case then I will still support you. You’re my little brother and no one can ever replace you.”

“What if I told you that it’s the younger Hoshidan prince?” Leo asked, pushing his luck a little more.

“Y-You’re…” Xander trailed off. “You’re from another time aren’t you?” He had made the deduction from both the books on the table and the way that Leo had been acting. There was no way that he could have had a connection to the Hoshidan prince in the current state of the countries.

“What of it?” Leo yelped, sounding somewhat like a wounded animal. “I’m still your brother, Xander!”

“You mustn’t tell father,” Xander said, urgency coating his voice. “I will support you in what you choose to do, but if it endangers our family or kingdom then I will have no choice but to stop you.”

“Okay…” Leo said, struggling to calm himself. “That’s… that’s better than you stopping me to begin with.”

“Now, tell me,” Xander picked up a piece of paper that Leo had been scribbling on. “How much time do you have and how quickly do we need to get to Cheve?”

*             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *

Xander gave Leo exact orders not to interfere with the battle, which wounded him more than any sword could. Takumi was on the battlefield along with his retainers and other Hoshidans he didn’t recognize well enough. He knew who they were he had just never spoken with them enough to remember their names. He could see Takumi yelling at Corrin and Camilla, and barely hear what he was yelling about. He wanted nothing more than to rush in and tear him away from the situation, but Xander standing behind him was enough to scare him into staying there. It was almost as if Xander held onto Leo with an invisible chain. Takumi fired an arrow at Corrin and it scared Leo more than it should have. He was more afraid of Corrin fighting back than Takumi harming them, even if Leo knew that Corrin didn’t enjoy hurting people.

The way that Takumi was moving was unnatural, as if he were a puppet on someone else’s strings, which truer than Leo had liked. He hadn’t seen that familiar shroud of purple, and hoped that Takumi had more free will over his actions than he did before. He then saw the familiar vixen in red: Scarlet. Her body language was much different than Leo had ever seen. She was cocky in the way she walked and seemed to be very well aware that she commanded the rebellion well enough to overthrow the monarchy. It felt strange to see this person in this manner, let alone alive. The last time that Leo had seen Scarlet, she was a walking corpse that was being controlled by…

_Wait what did Iago say before?_

Leo’s thoughts raced. Iago had said that Takumi was under the control of Anankos. Scarlet too was under the control of Anankos. Anankos killed Scarlet. He made her into a corpse puppet to do his bidding. He turned her against them. He did it while she was dead. Scarlet was dead. Scarlet was dead.

Leo suddenly made sense of what was going on. It was Anankos that was pulling the strings, not Iago. It was exactly like before. The only difference is that not a single soul knew that Anankos was an actual being.

Leo analysed the situation carefully. It wasn’t Scarlet that was giving orders this time. It was _Takumi_. Takumi was behind the rebellion this time. Leo’s eyes went wide. Takumi was behind the rebellion in Cheve, _not Scarlet._

Leo bolting up from his sitting position to run down onto the battlefield, but Xander grabbed his arm before he could get far.

“Xander let me go!” Leo yelped.

“What did I say? You aren’t to interfere with the battle,” Xander said, remaining stern.

“Scarlet isn’t controlling the army!” Leo declared. “Its Takumi!”

“You’re still not moving. Remember what I said; any harm to family or country and I stop you. I thought we had an agreement,” Xander replied.

It wasn’t until Takumi fired an arrow at Elise that Xander let Leo go.

Xander loosened his grip out of shock and Leo took the opportunity to retract his arm and slide down the hill that they had been sitting on. He tripped and fell, his run soon turning into a roll down the hill. He could barely hear Xander yelling for him from the top. Leo managed to roll far enough to end up right between Takumi and Corrin.

“Leo!?” Corrin exclaimed. “What are you doing here?!”

Leo looked up at both Corrin and Takumi, wincing from the fall. He could see Takumi’s facial expression soften from his unbridled anger towards Corrin. Scarlet looked on at the young man in confusion. He wasn’t wearing any armor, nor was he armed.

“Takumi who is this man? A civilian?” Scarlet asked, poking Leo in the leg with her boot. She too had noticed Takumi’s expression soften considerably.

“N-No… he’s-“ Takumi was immediately cut off by Leo.

“Yes. I’m a civilian,” Leo said, giving Corrin a look that read _keep your mouth shut._ He didn’t even need to tell Camilla, she went along with most of his plans. She trusted her younger brother in dire situations.

“I was on my way home and I tripped down the hill. I didn’t mean to- I didn’t mean to interrupt,” He said struggling to get up. It was evident that Leo had broken something on his fall, as he couldn’t put any weight on his left hand or his right ankle.

“Gods, are you hurt?” Takumi asked, offering his hand to Leo.

It was as if Leo entering the scene stopped, if not stopped then paused, the entire battle. Scarlet naturally assumed that Leo was Chevois, since there was almost no way to prove otherwise. Leo took Takumi’s hand and felt a small flutter in his chest. Something he was doing was working.

“Ah… its your leg isn’t it?” Takumi asked, so gently that it felt like a total change in personality. “Here let me just…” He trailed off, pulling a vulnerary out from a pouch he had. He applied the medicine to Leo’s leg gently. His touch was almost featherlike. Leo could feel confusion and anger coming from Camilla and it burned in the back of his head. He could also feel Xander staring daggers at Leo from atop the hill.

“Sorry to interrupt but… We’re still here to put a stop to this rebellion,” Corrin said, sheathing their sword. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Scarlet spat at Corrin, which wasn’t much of a surprise. “Peacefully? I don’t believe you for one second.”

“Scarlet, I’ll let you take care of this… traitor,” Takumi said, glaring at Corrin. “I need to make sure this man is alright.”

“Hey! I’m glad you truly believe in our cause! Helping the Chevois people,” Scarlet patted Takumi’s back. “I’ll look after things here.”

Takumi nodded and escorted Leo off the battlefield. Leo looked back at Corrin as if warning them to keep it peaceful, as they intended. Corrin knew that they couldn’t give Leo away, and simply stared back in agreement.

Takumi took Leo into the war room Scarlet had been using for months. There were documents spread across an oak table with a worn map on the wall. Several places had been marked off with daggers and shurikens. Port Dia had been marked off, as well as the Woods of the Forlorn; both places Takumi had been in at one point. He heard about Port Dia from Niles, who had been present for the fight. Under Leo’s orders he had been spying on Corrin to watch how they acted in each scenario. The other marker, the Woods of the Forlorn, Takumi had been brought to. Daggers marked off the Palace of Macarath, Cyrkensia, and of course Cheve. Leo stared at the map carefully until Takumi closed and locked the door.

“Is your wrist okay?” Takumi asked, taking Leo’s hand carefully to get a good look. Leo blushed heavily at Takumi’s gently touches.

“I-Its fine…” Leo said, avoiding eye contact. “I’m surprised you didn’t kill me on sight.”

“You saved me from that awful… dare I even call him a man? More like some kind of demon,” Takumi said, taking some bandages out from a chest of medical supplies.

“Your attitude… completely changed,” Leo noted.

“To be honest… when you’re around my head doesn’t hurt like it has around any other Nohrian. It even hurts when I’m around Scarlet,” Takumi explained.

“Y-Your head hurts?” Leo asked, tracing his fingers through Takumi’s bangs gently. He blushed heavily from the contact.

“Yeah… I don’t know why either,” Takumi replied. “I really wish it would stop.”

“I blame Iago… He’s probably the cause of it,” Leo said.

Takumi sighed heavily. “Great… another problem of mine.”

“Oh I’ll take care of that bastard. I’ll kill him. I’ve been wanting to for years,” Leo said, grabbing a knife from the table. Takumi couldn’t help but smile at Leo.

“Do you really think killing him would help?” Takumi asked, sounding hopeful.

“I really don’t know if it could but hey, gives me an excuse to get rid of him once and for all. That bastard has had it coming for years,” Leo said, swinging the knife around and stabbing the air. Takumi couldn’t help but laugh, amused by Leo’s enthusiasm.

“Hey, have you heard of this legend called the ‘red string of fate’?” Takumi asked, sitting in the nearest chair.

“I think I have? Its Hoshidan isn’t it?” Leo said, placing the knife gently on the table.

“Well… the legend goes that two people are tied together by an invisible red string. They are basically fated to be together no matter what,” Takumi explained, his face turning slightly pink. He then extended his pinky finger out to Leo.

“I feel as though the two of us are connected through this string. From the moment I met you I felt as though I had some sort of connection. Probably because you said you wouldn’t hurt me, and in turn I had no desire to hurt you either,” Takumi said, almost a murmur of shyness. Leo felt as though he were talking to a shy teenage boy.

Leo then linked his pinky around Takumi’s with a smile. “I’m guessing we are.”

Their moment didn’t last long. Suddenly there was a series of loud screams coming from town. Takumi then bolted from the table to the door and Leo followed close behind.

The scene that waited them was horrific.

Buildings were aflame, blood had collected into pools on the ground, and screams filled the air. Leo stared in abject horror as he saw people, _his people_ , being brutally murdered by some kind of monster. And Leo knew exactly who it was.

It was a horrible person named Hans; a former criminal that his father decided should fight for the Nohrian army. This person was murdering innocent men, women and children. Leo was utterly horrified. He could see Corrin trying to tear Hans away from crushing a young boy’s throat.

“This is your fault! You’re the reason these people are dying!” Takumi yelled, pointing at Corrin.

“This isn’t what I intended!” Corrin cried in response.

Leo was frozen in place. He couldn’t say a word, and couldn’t move an inch. He had no armor and he was completely unarmed. He was terrified. This is what war must have looked like to those who had nothing, who couldn’t do a single thing to stop it.

He felt his stomach twist into a knot as soon as he recognized Scarlet among the dozens of bodies sprawled on the ground. He couldn’t have been able to tell that was Scarlet if her armor wasn’t so recognizable. Her face had been cut up entirely to the point where flesh melted away to reveal muscle and bone. Her hair was no longer blonde, it was stained crimson by the excessive amount of blood pouring out of her face and neck. Her throat had been slit multiple times, unnecessary at best. Leo could have sworn he saw her spine through her neck.  Leo vomited violently, the pain in his stomach causing him to collapse to his knees.

Hans was a monster. There was no way a man like that was human. How could his father keep this letch in his company?

Corrin had begged over and over for Hans to stop, but he had claimed that Garon’s orders outranked theirs. Leo was then torn from his catatonic state as Takumi grabbed onto his good wrist and dragged him away from the scene. Leo looked at Takumi carefully, a hand on his head. His concern grew more and more as he heard Takumi grunt and growl.

The screams seemed to echo, even miles away from the town. Takumi had dragged Leo away to the outskirts of the town. It was quieter and darker, but he could see the smoke and light from the town easily on the horizon. He was breathless. The darkest depths of humanity hadn’t been that evident to him in his life.

His attention turned to Takumi, who had collapsed to the ground. He had both of his hands on the sides of his head, gripping his own hair tight enough to pull it out of his head. He was grunting and growling, as if he devolved into a while animal. Leo’s eyes widened. It was as if Iago had planned this.

“Nnngh…  Leo-!” Takumi cried, muffled by the ground.

Leo threw himself against the ground, kneeling beside Takumi and gently placing a hand on his back.

“Fight it! You can fight it! You’re stronger than this,” Leo said, rubbing his back reassuringly.

“I- I can’t! It won’t-“ Takumi cried, his voice raw and pained. “It won’t stop- It’s so much worse now!”

It tore at Leo to see Takumi like this. It was almost worse than watching him die.

Then Takumi handed him that familiar wakazashi.

“I-I need you to-“ He cut himself off with another cry. “I need you to kill me.”

Leo felt as though he didn’t hear that right. Did Takumi just say… what he thought he said? He wanted Leo to kill him? This couldn’t have been happening. This wasn’t happening.

“Takumi! You know I can’t!” Leo cried.

“Please! I’m begging you!” Takumi cried in response, looking at Leo with tears streaming down his face. “It feels like my head is about to split- I don’t want to end up being a puppet!”

Leo felt his heart shattered into a thousand pieces as he took the wakazashi from Takumi. He trembled with the hilt in his hands.

“W-Where do you want me… to…” he trailed off, his voice dissolving into sobs.

Takumi yelped in pain and pointed towards his head. “D-Don’t let me die slow.”

Everything was falling apart. Everything he had done, everything he had try to do was now undone. He prayed that he wouldn’t have to kill Takumi. He prayed so hard. Why did it end up like this?

_Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? **Why? Why? WHY? WHY? WHY?**_

His panicked thoughts soon drowned out the screaming from the town and Takumi’s pleading and cries. He gripped onto the hilt of the wakazashi until his knuckles were white. His own tears nearly blinded him.

“P-Please Leo,” Takumi whimpered. “I can’t… I can’t take this pain anymore. I-I’m… not strong enough.”

Leo raised the blade above Takumi’s head. He couldn’t bring it down as much as he tried.

“Takumi I can’t! I can’t harm you!” he cried.

“Y-You’re not…” Takumi trailed off, giving Leo a sad smile. “You’re… You’re saving me.”

No. No he wasn’t. He was aware he was killing Takumi and there was nothing that could prove him otherwise.

“I know you love me… and I know it’s hard,” Takumi said, strained. “T-This hurts you too and I hate it.”

“I do… I love you more than anything,” Leo confirmed.

“Y-you came back in time… trying to save me. I saw the books you grabbed and heard… I heard what you were muttering. I lied when I said I didn’t remember anything… I did hear you.”

He looked at Takumi in shock. “Y-you know…”

“You can go back again right?” Takumi asked, wincing as he spoke. “Change Corrin’s mind. Have them choose neither side. You said that’s the best way.”

“Yes… Yes it is…” Leo said, a sob like hiccup interrupting him. “That’s… what it was before…”

Takumi let out another cry, squeezing his eyes extremely tight as a shroud of purple smoke started to erupt from him. Leo practically choked on the smoke; it was like a thick miasma. Takumi opened his eyes for a split second and Leo could see the familiar amber becoming red.

“Do it!” he yelled, his voice sounding unnatural. It wasn’t his own. “Do it you Nohrian Scum!”

Leo gripped the hilt of the blade tight, and raised it above Takumi’s head again. He whispered an apology through a series a sobs, and brought the blade down.

He didn’t even know if the blade connected.

All he saw was another large flash of light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I DIDNT MEAN TO MIMIC THE PMMM SCENE WHERE HOMURA KILLS MADOKA BECAUSE SHE PLEADS AND TELLS HOMURA TO FIX SHIT I DIDNT MEAN IT IT WAS AN ACCIDENT. I MEAN I GUESS IT FITS!? IDK IM SORRY
> 
> Also thank caffeine, classical music, and anxiety for two chapters so close to one another hahah also pain. Grace has blessed me with many ways for Takumi to die but this was one I suggested.


	5. Terror

It was like déjà vu.

The same large flash of light from before completely engulfed him. Everything was a blur. He was blinded by tears that stung his eyes. The wound he had made on his hand began to bleed and he winced from the pain. It was almost as if his oath had been reset. He had been given another chance, as he had hoped. The wakazashi that Takumi had given him slowly faded into the light, and his clothes slowly became his armor. He closed his eyes and clasped his bleeding hand with the other.

He opened his eyes with a loud gasp. He was back on the Plains of Hoshido.

He could see Corrin arguing with Xander and Ryoma over who was their real family. He could see Elise and Camilla waiting patiently on the edge of their saddles to know the answer, to see what Corrin had chosen.

“Leo, are you okay?” Camilla asked.

“Big brother?” Elise asked, concerned more so than Camilla.

It was déjà vu.

“I’m fine… I’m fine,” Leo said, avoiding eye contact. He was focused on Corrin.

Leo then froze. He had to tell Corrin what was right. He was unable to pick up the reigns. He could only watch in silence as Corrin chose to side with Hoshido. They walked towards the high prince of Hoshido and pointed their sword at Xander.

_Not again._

Leo’s eyes darted to Takumi, too far from him to read his expression. He could feel the anger and betrayal from his sisters at his side. He looked behind him to see Elise on the brink of tears and it nearly shattered him.

_No. Not again._

He couldn’t do this again. Leo directed his horse to exit the battlefield. He felt his sisters’ stares burn into the back of his head as did so.

“Leo what are you doing?” Camilla asked. Leo didn’t respond.

_This can’t be happening again!_

Xander then called to his siblings, asking if they were ready to drag Corrin back to Nohr by any means, and Leo still remained silent.  He could feel Xander’s disappointment burn into him, hotter than any flame. He heard Camilla and Elise question him as he looked on into the distance.

And without a second though, he then signalled his horse to run off the battlefield. He could hear his siblings’ confused responses behind him as he sped away, choking back tears , sobs and yelps. He could hardly see where his horse was going; all he could see was a blur as he passed the plains and eventually reached the darkness of the mountains in the Bottomless Canyon.

He wiped his tears aggressively and patted his horse gently. “Take the bridge carefully, okay?”

His horse did what she was told. She took steps perfectly, waiting for praise from her master as a signal to continue. The horse took careful steps, as the bridge was rickety and unstable. He was well aware of the dangers of taking the bridge but it was one of the only ways back into Nohr without traversing through mountains. He knew that the horse couldn’t handle it, nor was he prepared for that kind of journey.

 A strange light appeared from under the bridge and spooked the horse enough to throw Leo off onto the bridge. He hit the bridge hard enough to almost break it. The crack of the wood underneath him was enough to make him yelp out of panic, clinging to the rope of the bridge. His horse then quickly ran to the other side of the bridge where Nohrian land begun.

He looked down at the endless chasm to see that strange light slowly floating towards him. It was small and shaped like a ball. He reached out to it, and it floated closer towards him. It was drawn to him. It floated around his head and eventually made its way into his hands. It was warm. It wasn’t just light however; it was soft to the touch as it nuzzled against Leo’s face. It felt like a small animal rather than ball of light.

It then floated away, like dandelion seeds. Leo couldn’t help but feel uplifted by it. It was as if that ball of light was sent to him with purpose and it felt kind. It felt… familiar.

Suddenly the bridge cracked underneath him. He scrambled to get to his feet, but the weight of the armor he wore cause the bridge to collapse. He clung to the ropes in hope that he could support his own weight on it alone, but he was wrong.

His fingers slipped off the rope and he soon found himself hurdling downwards into the eternal darkness of the canyon. His thoughts went silent, and he could only hear a dull ringing in his ears. He stared blankly at the bridge, growing ever distant, and his own hand which had still been reaching for the bridge.

The further he fell, the more hopeless he became. He knew that the canyon wasn’t bottomless. It was impossible and improbable. He could only swallow his fear and await the painful landing. He knew it would kill him instantly, and that worried him. Would his death break his oath? He could only close his eyes and pray for some kind of miracle. Somehow his faith in the gods was growing through his magical endeavor.

A bright light came close to his face; he could see it through his eyelids. He opened his eyes to see that warm ball of light again. He quickly opened his arms to it, hoping that it could possibly save him from the untimely demise. It floated closer to him, nuzzling at his neck and cheek. Leo clasped his hands around it gently, soon realizing that it had a physical form. He not only feel how warm it was, he could actually hold it close to himself. It carried a faint scent of cherry blossoms and oak. He closed his eyes and hummed softly.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

*             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *            

Leo opened his eyes to see a lush, beautiful landscape with islands floating in midair. It was unlike anything he had ever seen. He sat up to get a better view of the ground, which had ruins of stone buildings and arches littered for as far as he could see. It was as if…

“… time is at a standstill,” Leo said, standing up slowly.

He couldn’t help but breathe in the atmosphere. It was serene, unlike anything he had ever seen before. Then it hit him; he landed in Valla.

How could he forget? He had fallen into the Bottomless Canyon before. He knew what would await him at the bottom so to speak. He put a hand to his head in horror. Was it possible that this was affecting his memories now too? He looked around, searching for some familiar land marks that he had seen during his time spent there. He couldn’t recognize anything. He felt a sickening feeling of dread wash over him as his eyes darted from building to building. He couldn’t recognize anything. There were no known landmarks and he had no idea where he was. He couldn’t even ask anyone there, he was completely alone. He held his head in his hands in defeat.

“Leo…?” a soft spoken voice called to him.

He looked up from his palms to see a pale figure, draped in white clothes with long light blue hair before him. Relief was swift and he dropped his arms to his sides as if he were a rag doll.

“Azura…” he said, sighing in relief. “Thank gods I thought I was alone here.”

“As… did I,” she sounded suspicious of him. Her hand nervously gripped the pendant she wore around her neck. “What are you doing here?”

“I… I fell into the Bottomless Canyon,” Leo said, easily reading the mood.

“I thought you were on the Plains of Hoshido,” she said.

“As… did I,” he replied, his hands soon tightening into fists.

“Time goes slower in this place,” she said, looking around.

“I know. Valla’s time stands still,” Leo said.

Azura froze. “H-How do you know… the name of this place?”

“Azura I know that you’re a princess of Valla. Not Hoshido. Not Nohr,” Leo said.

“How do you know this?” she asked again.

“I’m from a different time. I’m here on accident,” Leo replied, relaxing a little.

Azura didn’t relax. She was more on edge from Leo’s statement than ever before. She backed up slowly until her back was up against a stone wall. She looked almost terrified of Leo, as if he were a monster standing before her.

“How is that even possible?” she asked, feeling the wall behind her for some kind of door or escape route.

“Brynhildr manipulates space and time. Although I don’t have control over it for I keep being sent into timelines I’m incredibly unfamiliar with,” Leo sighed, folding his arms against his chest.

“You really are talented with magic,” Azura said, relaxing quite a bit. Leo then realized why Azura was panicked. She didn’t believe it was truly him standing before her.

“I only have one problem with it, besides being thrown into random intervals of time,” he continued, looking at the ground sadly.

“What would that be?” Azura asked, finally approaching Leo.

“I’m forgetting things from my own timeline. I didn’t even remember that falling into the Bottomless Canyon would result in me landing in Valla,” he added.

“You… at least remember the curse right?” Azura asked, concern only growing.

“Yes… Of course I’ll remember that,” he replied. “I’m not about to risk disappearing. I have a duty.”

Azura looked at him curiously. “Duty?”

Leo put his hand over his mouth. He shouldn’t have told her that. He had been vague about it, but he was afraid at this point that revealing his intentions would inventively lead to his failures. The hand he had brought to his face began to sting. He winced and pulled it away, removing his gauntlet hastily. He stared down at his hand in horror. The wound he had made was growing in size, nearing the edges of his palm. He let out a sound in shock and gripped onto his wrist with his other hand.

“Leo?! Whats that wound?” Azura asked, rushing over to Leo.

“Its nothing,” Leo said, wincing as he closed his hand around the cut. It throbbed in agony when he clasped his fingers around it. He could feel blood start to ooze out of it, dripping from the sides of his hand. It was sickeningly warm and sticky, unlike any blood he had felt before. It was more syrupy and it felt as if it wasn’t actually coming from his body. He figured he was hallucinating as a side effect of ending up in Valla in a timeline that wasn’t his own.

He closed his eyes tight enough to sting, ringing in his ears starting to deafen him. He could feel Azura tugging at his arm, trying to drive his attention to her rather than whatever he was seeing. He opened his eyes and looked over to her, but her face wasn’t what was staring back at him. The face that was staring back at him was Takumi’s, but it was incredibly twisted. His amber eyes were replaced with dark circles, as if painted on with ink. His hair had been soaked with blood from the crown of his head to down the sides of it, leaving trails down his face.  The black ink like liquid was dripping from his eyes dripped down his cheeks and onto Leo’s arm like tears, leaving disturbing tear tracks of ink down his face. A dark and twisted smile had been drawn across his face in a similar manner, his head tilted to the side like a child. Leo looked down at the wound on his hand, and realized that the blood that was coming from it soon turned to ink as well. He could hear Takumi’s voice echoing in his head, mixed with a gravelly voice that clearly wasn’t his own.

“Why did you kill me Leo?” it said, repeating itself over and over. “I thought you wanted to save me.”

Leo yelped and pulled away from Azura, eyes wide. The haulicination faded quickly, and what was once a twisted nightmare turned back into Azura’s concerned face.

“Leo what’s going on?” Azura asked, weakly holding her hand out to Leo.

He stared at her blankly, breathing heavy and clutching onto his injured hand tight. He felt dizzy, as if the world was collapsing around him.

“A-Azura…” Leo stammered.

“We need to get you out of here and back to Nohr,” she said, gesturing Leo to take her hand.

He hesitated, thinking that touching Azura again would cause another hallucination similar to the one he just had. He couldn’t go through that again.

“Please Leo,” she urged him.

Leo looked down at his wound once again, and there was no blood or ink. It didn’t hurt anymore and it returned to its normal size. He felt his heart hammer in his chest out of fear. What did he see? Was it a repercussion?

“Please take me home. I can’t stay here any longer,” He pleaded, taking her hand gently

*             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *            

The nightmare haunted him for days. He was unable to focus on strategizing for Nohr to crush Corrin’s rebellion. He was completely numb to anything anyone tried to tell him. Iago had ordered him to do his bidding and Leo had told him no, for the first time. Zola had asked for orders and Leo couldn’t give them. He didn’t even have it in him to insult the cowardly mage. He was running on habit alone, spending his days in the library and working with tomes he couldn’t understand. He didn’t even read the books, he simply stared at them for hours not taking in a single word. It was as if he wasn’t actually in control of his actions and only working out of what felt like he should do.

“Milord?” Niles knocked on the library doors.

Leo looked up from his book, a simple fire tome. He had no idea what he was actually looking at and realized how stupid he would have looked in any other situation.

“What’s going on with you? You haven’t been the same since you came back from the Plains of Hoshido,” Niles said, walking into the room.

“Niles… I,” Leo struggled to piece together a coherent thought.

“You can tell me. I’m not loud and boisterous like Odin. You know I’m your shoulder to lean on,” Niles said gently, which had been out of character for him as well. There were no double entendres in his speech and he didn’t speak suggestively. Leo soon realized how serious everything was becoming. He had been so out of character that it affected his retainers as well.

“Odin isn’t even being loud and boisterious though,” Leo said, closing the book and tossing it across the table. “I feel as though my moods have been affecting you two as well… I’m sorry.”

“No. Don’t apologize. We’re just worried about you,” Niles said, putting a hand gently on Leo’s shoulder.

Leo involuntarily flinched at Niles’ touch, thinking he would see another distorted image if he came in contact with anyone. Niles couldn’t help but retract his hand sadly. Leo avoided eye contact out of shame.

“That wasn’t on purpose. Some sort of black magic is making me see really frightening things when I come into contact with people and I can’t even find out why,” Leo explained, gently resting his head on the oak table.

“That’s… unsettling,” Niles said.

“I think I would find something in the Woods of the Forlorn about it but I don’t want to go there. I feel like something bad is going to happen if I end up going there,” Leo said, frustrated enough to run his fingers through his hair roughly.

“Do you want Odin or I to go in your stead?” Niles asked, resting his own head against the table to maintain eye contact with Leo.

“No. It’s too dangerous. Faceless are everywhere in there. While you have stealth, Odin does not. He would make things dangerous and I wouldn’t feel right just sending one of you,” Leo explained. “I’ll have to go on my own, as much as I don’t want to.”

A few soldiers then rushed into the room, accompanied by Iago. Leo squinted, feeling frustrated from the vile heathen’s interruption.

“Milord, forgive me for interrupting, but you are needed,” Iago said, bowing his head to Leo.

“I’m not using my magic for nefarious circumstances Iago. Begone,” Leo said, dismissing the walking corpse of a man.

“No, you misunderstand,” Iago continued. “You are required to have an audience with the king.”

Leo froze. Why did his father wish to see him?

“So you brought an escort of soldiers to see that I don’t resist?” Leo asked, lifting his head from the table.

“Indeed. The reason you have been requested is due to a possible charge of treason,” Iago explained, sounding rather amused with himself.

“Treason!?” Niles exclaimed, standing up from his chair with enough force to knock it down. “What do you mean treason!? That’s ridiculous!”

Leo raised his hand, cuing Niles to hold his tongue. Leo stood up slowly and stared down his father’s advisor.

“I’m guessing this is because I retreated to the Bottomless Canyon and didn’t return for days,” Leo said, no inflection in his voice.

“You are correct milord,” Iago replied.

“Shouldn’t it be Corrin’s head on the chopping block and not mine?” Leo asked, using his wits to try and weasel his way out of the situation.

“Unfortunately, they aren’t here to receive a trail and punishment,” Iago said, signalling one of the soldiers to collect the young prince. The soldier pointed his lance at Leo, the blade close enough to slit Leo’s neck if he wanted to. Leo sighed and put his hands up in surrender, fire still burning behind his eyes.

“Come now, let’s make this quick.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took more anxiety and caffeine to finish oh my god i STRUGGLED FOR DAYS. Also yes cliff hanger because it feels so much better than going on to the next scene.


	6. A Servant's Duty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for gore/dead bodies in this one. I'm pretty descriptive

All eyes were on Leo as he walked through the halls, lances at the ready to kill him on the spot if he resisted. He could hear the maids whispering about him and he could see the other soldiers looking down on him for having an escort of this fashion. He could see Iago prematurely pruning his feathers as he smirked at everyone they passed. Leo couldn’t shake the feeling of his heart beating in his throat. He very well knew that Niles would sneak behind him, and it worried him how the guards would take that.

They reached the doors to the throne room in what felt like an eternity. Iago knocked daintily on the door, and Leo scoffed at the behaviour. He felt a lance soon pierce his stomach lightly and winced. The soldier looked almost scared to harm the prince as Leo looked down the lance to his face. Leo couldn’t help but feel shame wash over him as he placed a hand gently on the blade.

“Milord, I’ve collected Prince Leo,” he said.

“Very well, come in,” Leo could hear his father say from the other side of the door.

The large doors swung inward and Leo could see court had been arranged for this charge. He swallowed hard, soon realizing the severity of this accusation. He could see his siblings standing on the sidelines, similar to how they stood when sentencing Kaze and Rinkah, two Hoshidans that had been captured in battle. He very well knew that Xander wouldn’t allow any hard to come to him, at least he hoped. He could see his father sitting on the throne, staring daggers at his youngest son. Leo tried his best to stay calm.

“Leo, second prince of Nohr,” a loud voice boomed through the room. Leo clenched both of his hands into fists, nervously. It was a prosecutor. “You have been charged with the crime of treason against the kingdom of Nohr. How do you plead?”

Leo stayed silent, looking over at his siblings. Xander’s disappointment was something he could read easily. Both Camilla and Elise looked extremely worried.

“Not guilty. On account of severity of the charge against me which is unjustified,” Leo said, keeping his voice level and confident.

“Oh really?” his father replied. “You retreated from the battlefield and didn’t support your siblings on the Plains of Hoshido.”

“I never once turned a blade against my own family,” Leo said, staring down the prosecutor.

He could see Iago start to look uncomfortable, as if his plans had started to unfurl before him. Leo wanted to smile triumphantly, but decided such a cocky decision was ill advised at this time.

“It’s true!” Elise spoke up. “Leo would never hurt us!”

“While he did leave the battlefield, he didn’t flank us in any way. Perhaps he was trying to gather reinforcements since many of our troops have been cut down,” Camilla added.

“Silence!” Garon boomed.

The entire room fell silent. Leo winced at his father’s loud voice. Iago looked up at Garon for some kind of approval that Leo couldn’t read. He smiled sympathetically at Camilla and Elise, and they both returned the smile.

“Father, forgive my interruption,” Xander began. “But I believe that you’re laying charges against the wrong person. Shouldn’t it be Corrin that receives the charge and accepts punishment upon capture?”

Leo sighed out of relief. He knew that Xander would put his family before his country.

“Enough of this insolence! Promptly finish this farce!” Garon yelled, looking at Iago.

Iago then cleared his throat nervously and spoke up. “We find Prince Leo guilty of treason for the reason of desertion on the battlefield. Sentencing will be as follows.”

Elise screamed out something incoherent at Iago, and Camilla began to waltz over to the mage, axe in hand. Xander could only look on in horror as the word ‘execution’ left Iago’s mouth.

The entire court was in an uproar. Leo froze, unable to process much else as Iago ordered guards to seize him and bring him down to the gallows. He took a step back and soon stumbled onto the ground unable to support his own weight on his own two feet.

The glint of light on the head of arrow caught his attention. It was Niles up in the rafters, pointing at arrow directly at Iago’s head. He very well knew it was something that Niles had wanted to do for years. He could see Niles looking at him painfully, as if waiting for some kind of order or permission to fire. Leo swallowed his hesitation and returned to Niles a look of determination, fire burning in his maroon eyes.

The arrow then flew through the air and struck true on its target. It sunk into the back of Iago’s head and he fell to the ground. The guards then stopped, searching frantically for where the arrow came from. Leo attempted to scramble to his feet, soon being grabbed from behind. He yelled out in surprise, only to find that it was Camilla that had grabbed him. She practically dragged him out of the room by his heels. He stared up to where Niles was to see that he had fled the scene as quick as he had arrived.

Camilla soon shoved Leo into one of his secret passageways that he had built when he was a child. She handed him his tome, a cloak and a candelabra. She looked incredibly distraught to be sending Leo away, but she knew it was for his safety.

“Go to the mansion in the Woods of the Forlorn,” she whispered, holding onto his hand shakily. “They won’t dare go there due to all the Faceless. This tome will bend them to your will. I stole it from Iago.”

“No… you didn’t,” Leo replied sadly. “I know Beruka would have taken it for you. You knew this was going to happen didn’t you?” He asked, stroking the back of Camilla’s hand with his thumb.

“You have something up your sleeve I know, but I know you’d never betray us Leo,” Camilla replied, almost on the brink of tears. “I cannot allow them to take my little brother away.”

Leo took hold of the tome that Camilla described. It was worn and its cover had been stained with blood. He then looked up to see his sister in tears. This was something he never thought he would ever see from her.

“Go. Quickly,” she said, sliding the bookcase over the entrance into the tunnel.

“No wait-!” He tried to call to her, but as soon as he reached out to her the bookcase covered the entrance and the tunnel was pitch black. He cursed to himself, sliding Brynhildr into the pouch Camilla had made for it. He had to keep Iago’s cursed tome on him. It was going to protect him from the hoards of Faceless he was about to run into.

“Thank you Camilla…. I love you,” He murmured to himself sadly.

He snapped his fingers and lit the candelabra with ease, soon revealing what was in the tunnel. The walls had been scratched repeatedly by tooth and claw. Some of the markings were words, but Leo couldn’t make out what they said. Most of it was intelligible, and some in another language. He was horrified to see that the engravings were stained red with blood. The further he walked into the tunnel, the more it began to smell like rotting flesh. He covered his face with his sleeve in disgust. It soon dawned upon him that Iago had found this particular tunnel and had been using it to store dead bodies that could be used to make Faceless. It became more and more unbearable as he proceeded down the tunnel, seeing more piles of bodies as he progressed. He recognized some of the faces as criminals that had been convicted and even a few townspeople he had seen in passing. Some of the faces were either rotted beyond recognition and others had been torn apart by blades or bashed in with clubs.

The further he walked on, the more and more the bodies seemed to be lined against the walls. A sickening squish from under Leo’s boot stopped him in his tracks. His eyes darted to the floor in horror as he saw half of a brain underneath his foot. He dropped his candelabra and staggered, placing a hand against the wall. It was wet and sticky. He fought the urge to retch across the floor, feeling it rise in his throat. He closed his eyes tightly, fighting the feeling with all his might. He then opened his eyes to see complete darkness, and he was afraid to feel around for the brass candelabra amongst the mounds of flesh. He snapped his fingers to produce a short lived flame. With the minimal light he was able to spot the candelabra. He reached for it, then slipped on something unseen on the floor and tumbled onto a partly decomposed body.

Leo bolted to his feet as he felt something cold and small wriggle onto his fingers. He stifled a yell and shook his hand vigorously as the feeling wouldn’t leave his hands. He felt disgusting to have discovered something so vile within a chamber he once used to hide from suffocating castle life and vengeful heirs full of greed. How did all of this happen without him knowing it?

“Oh gods oh gods I cannot go on further if it gets worse this is awful,” Leo murmured to himself, struggling to regain his composure. He had seen war and plenty of it, but this was something unimaginable and horrific. He’d only read about decomposition this far and prayed that he would never have to see it in his life.

He took a few deep breaths and stared down the tunnel. He could see a small light glint in the distance. A glimmer of hope rose in his heart and he pressed onward, holding a flame rather than a candelabra.

Soon he saw the light of the flame shine off metal, and he could see that he wasn’t alone in the tunnel. He kept quiet, looking around the tunnel for any other signs of metal reflecting the flame. He unclipped the pouch he used for Brynhildr as he heard footsteps walking towards him.

 “Milord I understand your concern, but I don’t think wrapping me up in those vines is good for either of us right now,” a voice called, quiet and calm. Leo sighed out of relief. It was Niles.

“Gods you scared me half to death,” Leo sighed.

“Well I guess you’d fit in considering the company down here,” Niles said, lifting his foot as he obnoxiously stepped over a corpse on the floor.

“Not funny right now Niles,” Leo said, referencing the amount of black putrefactic liquid on his pants and shirt.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Niles said, gently taking Leo’s hand to guide him through the rest of the tunnel.

“Gods, where’s Odin?” Leo asked, eyes still staring directly at the floor.

“He’s at the other end. Don’t worry we left the castle as soon as the commotion started,” Niles reassured.

Niles noticed Leo taking purposefully slow steps, and tried to let the urgency of the situation go for a minute. When the two of them heard footsteps above them, Niles wasted little time lifting Leo up into his arms. Leo let out a loud yelp, and Niles soon clamped his hand over Leo’s mouth.

“Shh! The point of this is escaping without being noticed!” He whispered harshly. “I also apologize for acting out of line.”

Leo shook his head and soon relaxed as Niles shifted Leo onto his back. Leo was just thankful he didn’t have to run through mountains of dead bodies and decomposition. The ground became more soupier as Niles ran though. He was careful with his footsteps, watching for wet spots so he wouldn’t slip, using Leo’s flame as a reliable light source. The footsteps from above soon sounded closer in the tunnel, causing Leo’s heart to hammer against his chest.

“Halt!” a call came from far down the other end of the tunnel, echoing off the walls.

“Niles please,” Leo said, gripping onto Niles’ cape.

“Gods I wish you weren’t saying that to me in _this_ scenario,” Niles replied, responding to the urgency in Leo’s voice.

Soon enough, the two of them reached the exit and Leo had realized that Iago had extended the tunnel far enough to reach the Demon’s Falls. The waterfall was literally ablaze and fire flowed into the river nearby. Leo stared at it in awe.

“Milord! Thank gods you made it through there!” Odin yelped, sounding both panicked and relieved.

“Who set the falls ablaze?” Leo asked, still gawking at the fire spewing from the waterfall.

“It… was always like that,” Odin replied meekly.

“Look we can worry about those questions later. Odin did you bring Rose along with you?” Niles asked, readdressing the urgency.

“How do you think I got here so quick? Normally a journey like this would take two days. The tunnels underneath the castle cut the time in twine as well. They are enchanted of course,” Odin explained his hand on Leo’s horse’s reigns.

“Enough posturing Odin this is dead serious. Did I not tell you they want his head on a silver platter?” Niles asked sounding agitated as he let Leo down of his back.

“Gods I was hoping you were joking,” Odin replied, looking at the both of them in disbelief.

“You two have to come with me. You’re accomplices in this now and you’ll be charged and killed as well,” Leo said.

“That’s just something I have to accept,” Niles replied, practically forcing Leo up onto his horse.

“N-No! I can’t let the two of you die!” Leo cried, struggling against Niles the best he could.

“I signed up for this since day one milord,” Niles said, smiling sadly.

“No! You can’t!” Leo could feel tears running down his face. He gripped onto Niles’ cape with everything he had.

“Lord Leo, let us help you escape. Let us do this for you,” Odin said, smiling the same goofy way he usually did.

“You’re coming with me to the Woods of the Forlorn! That’s an order!” Leo yelped his voice cracking and squeaking.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to disobey that order,” Niles said gently taking Leo’s hands off his cape. “Go now. We’re running out of time.”

“Niles god damn it! You will follow my order! You too Odin!” Leo yelled.

“Ride well milord. Whatever it is you have planned, make sure you succeed at it,” Odin added.

Niles patted the horse’s leg and it began to run for the Woods of the Forlorn. Leo could only watch in horror as the guards from inside the tunnel had caught up to his retainers.


	7. Death and New Life

Leo had been riding blindly for what felt like eons. The horse didn’t know where she was going, and Leo had no idea how to guide her. He pulled backwards gently on the reigns to slow her down. The horse whinnied in protest.

“I know, I know I’m sorry,” Leo soothed, running his fingers through her mane gently.

He looked around, and realized that he was close to Fort Dragonfall. He praised his horse for going in the right direction and hugged onto her gently. She was his only form of comfort at that moment. He thanked her several times, soon hiding his face in her mane.

“I wish I knew a spell that allowed me to actually talk to you,” Leo murmured, hopping off his horse to investigate the area.

The buildings were in ruins, and mere echoes of what they once were. Leo traced his fingers along the remainder of the cobblestone walls. Something didn’t seem right about the area. It was almost miasmic and hard to breathe in. One deep breath and Leo had been practically knocked over by the thick air. He leaned against the cobblestone wall, with little faith that it could support his weight. He coughed hard enough to collapse to his knees, as if the wind had been knocked out of him. He could tell by the air that there were Faceless in the area. He struggled to grab the tome that Camilla had given him to control the Faceless.

Soon enough, several of them began to surround Leo. His horse whinnied, obviously spooked by the sudden hoard of enemies that seemed to appear out of thin air. He assumed that they were coming from the Woods of The Forlorn and wandering to different areas due to dense population in the woods. Leo called to his horse to tell her to stay where she was and that she wasn’t in any danger. Leo knew that his words meant nothing to the animal, but he was hoping his voice was enough to keep her calm.  She did as she was told and simply moved to an area where the Faceless couldn’t see her.

Leo very well knew that the creatures weren’t smart, or even sentient. They could not feel pain nor could they feel emotion. They could barely even think for themselves. Leo pulled out the tome and flipped through the pages until he found the one he was looking for, bookmarked and scribbled on. He traced his hand over the page and closed his eyes, focusing on whatever magic he could imbue it with. He muttered the incantation on the pages and a dark, shadowy orb appeared in Leo’s hand. He had no idea what to do with it, his eyes darting between it and the large group of Faceless slowly creeping towards him. He thought about the spell being used in a large area and could sweep it causing all the Faceless to bend to his whims. He directed the spell upward and as he thought the dark ball became larger and enveloped the area. Soon enough the Faceless looked at Leo curiously, as if awaiting orders.

“That… worked…” he said breathlessly, struggling to get up. “I can’t believe that worked.”

The Faceless continued to stare at Leo, almost hauntingly. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was hundreds of those creatures just staring at him, waiting for some kind of word or action.

“Remove yourselves from existence. Those in the woods as well,” he said in a loud authoritative voice. “Your previous master is dead. I take his place.”

The Faceless looked at each other for a moment, almost curiously. Leo swallowed hard, hoping that the Faceless wouldn’t turn against him. Soon enough, they turned on each other clobbering themselves into nothing more than black putrefactic pulps while others returned to the Woods of the Forlorn. Leo could only assume that those who had left had gone to destroy the others.

It had suddenly dawned on Leo that going to the Woods of the Forlorn was almost… predictable. If the soldiers of the castle were going to hunt him down and kill him, then the woods were the first place they would look. Leo cursed to himself and smacked the cobblestone wall hard enough to knock it down. He yelped in surprise and jumped back as the stone began to topple over. He had to think of another plan.

The border.

He knew it was dangerous to ride back up to where the tunnel ended, but he had to figure out a way to get across the Bottomless Canyon into Hoshido. Perhaps due to his exile, he could find refuge in Hoshido. It would put him closer to Takumi.

Right. Takumi.

He had almost forgotten what his goal was in the first place. The whirlwind of conflict in his own home made him forget what he was there for. He couldn’t help but feel that he wanted this timeline to fail. He already lost his family by being forced to run away from his home, and lost his retainers doing so.

He climbed back onto his horse, stroking his fingers through her mane in praise for listening to him. He guided his horse back on the path they were just on. He weighed his options, wondering if it was better to go around the path of the sea near Cyrkensia or even the port rather than going back up to Demon’s Falls. He knew Corrin would be making their way to Nohr due to the war waged from their decision and the fact that Xander had declared war on Hoshido. He also knew that there would be Nohrian forces in Cyrkensia and at the Port, rather than at the path between the Demon’s Falls and the Bottomless Canyon.

Leo tore off his headband and took off his horse’s mask. It was the distinctive mark of a dark knight and it identified him easily. He removed the horse’s distinct dark knight armor and dented it into something unrecognizable with flames. He then realized he could easily fake his death by leaving traces of him behind. He glanced at the bodies of the Faceless that had been left. He hated using illusion magic due to its cowardly intentions but he knew that he had to do it. He transformed one of the Faceless into a horse identical to his own, and placed the armor around it. He had placed it carefully in a particular arrangement, as if it had been torn off and the horse had been mauled viciously. He then transformed another one of the bodies into himself. He was almost horrified as he met the image of his own death. He sighed and left a tome near the body. He knew that it would make his siblings sad, but his actual death would be a worse fate. It was odd seeing his own face in such a way, as if he were asleep. He shook the haunting thought and climbed atop his horse. He only hoped that the illusion would suffice to end the chase.

*             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *

Leo made it back to the Demon’s Falls quicker than he had left. He looked around, seeing if his retainers were still there and he couldn’t find hide or hair of either of them. To his horror he found Niles’ bow, snapped in two and the gemstone he had encrusted into it was gone. He knelt down next to the bow and picked it up gently. He held half of the splintered wood against his chest solemnly. He hoped that the two of them were alive somewhere. They didn’t deserve to die. He left the shattered bow behind and looked around for soldiers. He was alone with the river set on fire.

“I’m… sorry Niles… Odin…” Leo muttered choking back tears.

His horse then nudged at his shoulder gently, as if offering some kind of support for him. He stroked her face gently and quietly thanked her. She truly was his only comfort in the world right now.

He glanced at the flaming river, knowing that he and his horse required water. He wondered if a tome he had could fix the water so it could be consumable. He cursed his sheltered life for not having many survival skills. He really did need Niles and Odin to do this. He sighed heavily and flipped through Brynhildr, looking to see if there was something in there he could use. The tome protected him, so maybe it could provide him with the means to survive.

Suddenly something caught his eye. The light of the flames was reflecting off metal, much like his own reflected off metal. He cautiously walked towards it. He soon realized that it was a silver sword resting against the entrance to the tunnel. He also noticed several corpses littering the entrance. All of them were soldiers. He glanced around the piles of bodies, hoping he couldn’t see the blue of Niles’ cape or the orange of Odin’s pants amongst the purple uniforms. He felt somewhat relieved when he didn’t see either of those colours. He returned his attention to the sword. It had been imbued with magic. Its hilt was cold to the touch, and the blade was frozen. It was almost unnatural next to the fiery river. His heart sank as he saw small package wrapped in familiar blue fabric. He collapsed to his knees and traced his fingers across the fabric. It was his cloak. He could tell by the touch. Behind it was a note. He recognized the horrible handwriting as Niles’. He could make out a small map underneath it as well. Upon closer inspection he realized that Niles had left the note to tell Leo that both he and Odin were still alive. Odin had set a trap upon anticipation of soldiers chasing after Leo.

Leo couldn’t help but smile and feel a wave of relief and pride wash over him. Leo taught Odin that tactic with a Mjolnir in case of being surrounded. He became overwhelmed with tears and hiccupped a small amount of laughter as tears fell on his hands holding the note. The map lead to a mansion that wasn’t far from the Demon’s Falls. Niles had written that it was rumoured to be abandoned, and even if it wasn’t it gives Leo a place to rest before crossing over into Hoshido. He knew that he didn’t have much time to go across the border without seeming suspicious or until Corrin makes their move against Nohr.

He opened the pack to find a canteen of water, some oats for his horse and bread roll with some jam. Leo couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of Niles carrying jam around like it was just something to have on him. He put the bread roll in his mouth and carried the oats over to his horse. She whinnied excitedly and trotted over to him. He then took a swig of the water and gave the rest to his horse, knowing she probably needed it more than he did. He took hold of the sword and soon noticed a note behind it as well. This handwriting looked much more… eccentric. He snickered; knowing Odin probably named the weapon and wanted Leo to embrace its name. The note, in the fanciest handwriting that Leo had ever seen, read ‘Leo’s Iceblade’. Somehow he was surprised that the name of it wasn’t more intricate, but he smiled at the thought of a weapon being forged just for him.

He attached the sheath of the sword to his belt and folded Niles’ cloak up small enough to fit it in a pack on the horse’s saddle. He hopped back atop his horse and guided her in the direction of the so called mansion. He brought down the reigns lightly and she began to run in the direction Leo directed her to. He couldn’t help but feel the need to rush in the direction Niles indicated, a sense of hope and urgency drowning out any feeling of suspicion. There was a possibility that the mansion was a trap, but Leo knew he had to head in that direction either way. It wouldn’t make sense for the soldiers to leave him a weapon to slaughter them with if he needed to. In his mind, the possibility of them being alive was worth the risk.

The mansion made itself known on the horizon. It was more of an estate, with the property’s land reaching quite far. As anticipated, the mansion was heavily guarded. The hope in his heart immediately sank as he reached the back entrance to the mansion. Maybe it really was a trick.

Suddenly a familiar spell’s light caught his attention. It was Odin’s tome. No other tome could produce that kind of magic. Hope once again rose in his heart and he followed the light. Happy tears began to form in his eyes as he saw Odin’s obnoxious coloured clothes and Niles’ white hair in the darkness.

“Good Gods! You’re alive!” He yelped quiet enough for the guards to not hear him.

“Thanks to Odin… Gods that was such a close call,” Niles said, sounding exasperated.

Leo hopped off his horse and practically tackled the both of them to the ground. He could hardly breathe through his crying fit.

“Oh c’mon milord,” Odin laughed. “You’re crying like we actually died.”

“Don’t joke about that you big buffoon!” Leo yelped punching Odin lightly in the chest.

“I’m so sorry about your bow Niles…” he added finally crawling off the two of them.

“It’s fine… Thanks to the gem on it I’m still here. I didn’t know it was imbued with magic too,” Niles shrugged.

“Also the both of you are going to receive quite the punishment for scaring me like that!” Leo said. “Don’t ever do anything like that ever again!”

“Look if we didn’t send you off, you’d be dead. We did what we had to,” Niles replied nonchalantly.

“From what I can understand you need to get into Hoshido without being recognized as the second prince of Nohr,” he added. He then looked at Leo peculiarly, noting the missing headband and the horse’s missing armor.

“I faked my death. In the ruins near Fort Dragonfall,” Leo explained. “I left the armor and my headband behind. I used an illusion to make a Faceless’ corpse look like… me.”

“You actually… used illusion magic?” Odin asked sounding incredibly shocked.

“I had to do what I had to. This way word will spread that Prince Leo is dead,” Leo said.

“So what pseudonym will you go by now?” Odin asked.

“I was hoping the two of you could help me with that. I held on to hope that you two were alive. I honestly cannot do any of this without you,” Leo replied.

“I’d say ‘Leon’ but it’s too similar to your actual name,” Niles said.

“That’s the thing though Niles,” Leo added. “I need something that I will actually reply and nothing too far away from my actual name.”

“I guess ‘Leon’ it is,” Odin shrugged. “Leon the Average!”

Leo couldn’t help but laugh at Odin’s enthusiasm. He hugged the both of them once again before deciding it was time to wander into Hoshido.

“Milord wait,” Niles said as Leo was about to hop back on his horse.

“What is it?” Leo asked.

“You… need to change your clothes. You still look like nobility,” Niles said, handing Leo some clothes. “These are some of mine. I hope they won’t be too big.”

“Niles… They are going to be too big,” Leo replied deadpan.

“I can shrink them with magic once they are on you!” Odin added.

“Right… I keep forgetting magic like that exists,” Leo said taking off his cloak.

“That’s another thing milord,” Niles said. “You… might need to leave Brynhildr behind.”

“I am not leaving my tome behind,” Leo replied extremely quickly, placing a hand on his tome pouch defensively.

“As long as you can keep it hidden its no big deal,” Niles said with a shrug. “But if you’re found out you could be in some serious trouble.”

“I’ve been exiled as it is Niles,” Leo said sadly, slowly taking off his shirt. “Like it would matter if I was found out, I pose no threat.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Niles sighed, taking the shirt from Leo and handing him one of his own.

“Niles the v-neck on this is way too low,” Leo said, holding the shirt against himself.

“Like I said, I can shrink it!” Odin chipped in.

Leo sighed heavily and slipped the shirt on. It was a lot bigger on him than he expected. The sleeves completely covered his hands and the v neck dipped low enough to reach his stomach. Leo had no idea how much bigger Niles was. It almost made him feel embarrassed that his chest was a lot smaller and not as muscular.

“Okay now’s not the time to get all bashful,” Niles said, turning Leo around so that he wasn’t on display for both he and Odin.

“A-Are my pants okay? Or do I need to change them too?” Leo asked.

“You probably need to change them,” Niles replied. “And also something I find a little peculiar. The shirt you were wearing was fully open, almost the same as the shirt I gave you. What makes you so embarrassed about my shirt?”

“My chest is smaller than yours and I had no idea how much smaller until now!” Leo blurted out, instinctively covering himself.

Niles smirked. “Now now milord… Is it really the time to be telling me this? Odin is a little bit more built than you are too.”

“Stop!” he yelped, covering his face with the too long sleeves.

“Okay, okay enough teasing,” Niles chuckled.

Leo struggled to keep Niles’ pants up and walked around awkwardly with the too big shoes. Odin snickered before shrinking everything down to fit Leo better. Leo then patted himself down and made sure that everything fit okay.

“So, do you have some kind of back story if you’re asked about your identity?” Niles asked, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

“I’m a mage of Nohr that has no interest in the corrupted ruling class,” Leo said.

Odin and Niles both looked at eachother for a minute before laughing at Leo’s story.

Suddenly they heard one of the guards question what the noise was. Both Niles and Odin shrunk themselves against the wall while Leo was standing out in the open, horse and all.

“That will have to do. Go,” Niles whispered. “We’ll keep in contact I promise.”

Leo nodded and quickly collected all he needed to before mounting his horse and heading in the direction of the Bottomless Canyon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M ON A FUCKING ROLL!!!!!!! okay now i will dissappear for weeks or something. Idk im having a lot of ideas so im like yeee


	8. Foreign Ties

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! I had a ton of issues in life and i had a huge amount of writers block... i rewrote this chapter twice because i was worried it was getting boring? Anyway.. I hope its not getting boring... i literally had to do transitions and it cant just be like WHAM CHAPTER 11 OF BIRTHRIGHT because thats not the passage of time BUT ANYWAY... Here we goooooooo enjoy this chapter and im sorry for the wait.

Thoughts were racing through Leo’s head. Not only was he terrified of falling into the Bottomless Canyon again, he was also nervous that his identity would be easily discovered. There was so much that had happened in the last few hours that he wasn’t sure how anything would turn out. He had drastically changed time at least twice, and he knew that the events that he caused would not have happened normally if he wasn’t thrown into those timelines. He pondered the idea of those running at the same time as his own, just parallel based on Corrin’s decision. It was a theory he had.

He was careful on the bridge this time, guiding his horse gently across it, taking notice of more damaged boards and avoiding them carefully. He took it slow, knowing that the bridge could collapse at any moment. He kept looking down, trying to focus attention to the boards rather than the canyon below, which he knew was a very far fall that felt like eternity and he didn’t want to end up in Valla again.

“Halt!” yelled an unfamiliar voice from across the bridge.

Leo stopped his horse, as he was told. He squinted to see who was across the bridge. He didn’t know the face; he supposed that the voice belonged to a Hoshidan spy or soldier but could tell by the accent that the person could have been Nohrian. Soon after, a horse began to walk out of the shadows with its Nohrian rider. He cursed to himself. He was right.

 A cavalier had stopped him at the bridge. Leo lifted up his hood quickly and used another illusion spell to make his eyes green. His maroon eyes would be a dead giveaway for a Nohrian soldier and he recognized this soldier from his childhood. He had been one of Corrin’s childhood friends. Leo couldn’t remember his name, but knew this soldier well enough to need a disguise.

“You intend to cross over into Hoshido?” the cavalier asked, eying Leo carefully.

“Yes. I am seeking refuge. My village was destroyed,” Leo replied, gripping onto the reigns tightly. He bit his lip and tried to keep a level head. His anxiety could give him away.

 The cavalier eyed him carefully, assuming that Leo could be some kind of spy sent by Nohr. Leo had no armor on, and his horse was also had no semblance of a dark knight’s horse. Leo couldn’t help but feel his hands tremble on the reigns.

“Gods… I can’t imagine what that had been like,” the cavalier said, pointing out Leo’s trembling fingers. “I’m sorry I stopped you.”

Leo looked up curiously at the cavalier, noting the genuine sympathy in his blue eyes. Leo nodded in thanks and continued guiding his horse across the rickety bridge.

Leo couldn’t shake the feeling that the cavalier recognized him from life in the castle. He knew that cavalier well, he was friends with Corrin. Corrin never once mentioned his name, and Leo couldn’t remember it for the life of him. He tried not to worry about being recognized. The most recognizable feature of him was his maroon eyes against his blond hair and of course his headband. Both were gone, but his next worry was being recognized by Corrin or the Hoshidan royal family.

He rode almost blind to the Plains of Hoshido, his mind racing and lost in his thoughts. His head was filled with worries and fears. The ‘what if’ scenarios were endless, and if he didn’t have a counter measure he would feel almost defenceless. He was drowning in uncertainty and it filled his lungs with every sharp inhale.

He looked up away from his horse’s mane to see the plains; the river dried up thanks to a Dragon Vein, the bridge that was scorched from a fire tome. It dawned on Leo that the battle may have been harsher than he had thought it would be. Camilla was always at a tactical disadvantage and Elise didn’t know magic of her own yet. He cursed to himself, realizing that the charges he was given were completely justified.

“I’ve doomed my family once again,” he muttered. “Gods I know it’s cruel… but I hope that I can reset this timeline as well.”

He ran his fingers through his horse’s mane, seeking comfort in the feeling. He looked around, unsure of his surroundings as his horse wandered forward. He had no ability of second sight and found himself stuck. Where was he supposed to go?  He looked around for some kind of sign to point him in the right direction. He could read Hoshidan to a great degree, so navigating in a foreign country wasn’t that hard for him.

Eventually he made it to a crossroads and looked carefully as the sign. It took him a couple of minutes to understand the lettering as the sign was hand written and extremely weathered. South East read Fort Jinya, while North East read Mountain Fort. He tried his best to visualize a map of Hoshido in his mind, seeing which one of those places would be closer to the capital or closer to where he needed to be.

Suddenly the cavalier that Leo saw on the bridge rushed by behind him, going as fast as the horse could run. He turned around to see a blur of grey run right past, running in the direction of the fort to the south east. Leo smirked and turned his horse to face that direction. He could only assume that was the right choice.

*             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *            

Fort Jinya was difficult to navigate. Leo had to be stealthy, and a horse made things more difficult then they needed to be. He kept close to the walls, listening carefully for voices he recognized. He could hear several shouts in a language different than his own, and other yells sounding like orders. He then saw the cavalier that he saw on the bridge accompanied by two unrecognizable soldiers. Leo had seen the two in Xander’s command once before and tugged his hood down further in fear of being recognized.

“Corrin! Its me! Silas! How can you not remember?” the familiar cavalier yelled across the walls.

“I don’t remember much,” Corrin yelled in reply, sounding almost solemn.

“Damn it. I guess it was fated that were to fight against one another then,” the cavalier named Silas.

Leo cursed and struggled to find a way around the fort without being seen by Silas or the other Nohrian cavaliers. He followed the circular walls of the fort close enough to overhear some information that was worrisome.

“We have to find our big brothers,” Corrin said.

Leo stopped his horse close enough to hear the entire conversation.

“Gods I can’t imagine where they could be… I have an idea about Ryoma but I don’t know about Takumi… I’m worried,” Sakura replied, a sob caught in her throat.

Leo’s eyes fell to the ground. _Missing? What could she mean by missing?_

A sour taste filled Leo’s mouth as his thoughts wandered to Iago. Its possible that the foul dark magic he had used in the previous timeline could have been used in this one too. He had no choice but to wait. He couldn’t go back to Nohr. It was much too dangerous to him and everyone he loved. He knew his only option was to join Corrin’s forces, but he needed to make some changes to his appearance.

He hid his tome well in a bag on the saddle of his horse. He would have to rely on blade alone to fight his way through what he had to. He knew that his eyes weren’t enough of a disguise and dumped his canteen on his head. He could find a viable water source later, what was important right then was making himself look somewhat unrecognizable.

The water from the canteen acted as a catalyst in another illusion spell. Leo hated resorting to that kind of magic but he didn’t have much of a choice. The water turned his hair brown and it curled up naturally. He looked at his reflection in steel of his sword. He grimaced at his curls, pulling one down in a half-hearted attempt to straighten it. Corrin had never seen his hair like this before, so it was a perfect disguise. As much as he hated it, he needed to look like a stranger.

He waited for Corrin to exit the fort and confront Silas. He was a master strategist of Nohr and knew what moves he had to make. He had to play his cards right and knew that a pity plea was something he had to go for. He took a knife from the pack on his horse and looked over it carefully. It wasn’t Nohrian so it wasn’t suspicious. He placed the leather sheath in his mouth and stabbed the knife into his leg as hard as he could. He bit the leather down just as hard, stifling any sounds. He twisted it, knowing that the severity of the wound would catch Corrin’s attention even if he were a stranger.

As soon as he saw Corrin’s distinguishable white hair, he tossed the knife aside and dropped the sheath from his mouth. He had to cry out for help now, that was the next step… But Leo couldn’t make a sound. The pain from the wound stopped any sound from escaping him. He cursed silently, then tapped his horse to walk forward. He realized he made a major mistake.

Corrin’s eyes eventually met his only by chance, and their face contorted from a smile to a look of horror as their eyes looked down to Leo’s wound.

“Sakura! Hurry! There’s someone injured here!” they cried, rushing to Leo’s aid.

Leo couldn’t help but feel bitter seeing Corrin pity him like this, but he had no choice. This was the best solution and the least suspicious.

“Hey! Stay with me! Did you get caught in the cross fire?” Corrin yelped, placing their hands on Leo’s shoulders in attempts to keep him conscious. Leo looked up to see Corrin’s wide red eyes, brimming on the edge of tears as they hurried Sakura over.

“I’m…” Leo barely managed.

“No. Save your energy. You’re going to be okay,” Corrin shushed him, putting pressure on wound. Leo thanked the gods that Corrin wasn’t smart enough to know about how wounds look from different angles of stabbing.

Sakura ran over as fast as she could, festal in hand. Leo looked at it curiously, feeling delirious from the blood loss but also because it was so different than a staff. He reached out to it like a child wanting to touch something unfamiliar, and Sakura retracted awkwardly. She seemed unsure of him, judging by the way her eyes darted around him.

“I-I’ve stopped the bleeding… But he’s still going to have to heal on his own,” she said quietly to Corrin. Leo had mistaken her possible suspicions about him for her natural anxiety towards strangers and cursed himself for thinking in such a way. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body and it hurt Leo to think of her as such, considering how similar she was to his own younger sister.

Corrin sighed out of relief and looked back at Leo, kindness in their eyes. “You lost quite a bit of blood here.”

“Did… I?” Leo asked, placing a hand on his leg. He tried his best to act surprised.

“Yeah… someone got you bad in the leg… I’m so sorry about that,” Corrin said, placing their hand over his.

“You’ll be okay now,” their smile was so genuine that it was almost sickening to see it. This was the Corrin that willingly betrayed their family in Nohr. It was hard for him to hold his tongue.

“Oh gods! My apologies are you still in pain?” Corrin asked, retracting their hand. It then occurred to Leo that he was probably grimacing at them.

“Just… a little light headed. I don’t think I can stand,” Leo said, struggling to sit up.

“Kaze, can you help me lift him up onto his horse?” Corrin called.

Leo felt his heart beat in his throat. Kaze would recognize his voice in a heartbeat. Leo was surprised that Corrin hadn’t recognized his voice yet. Leo looked at the ninja wide eyed, and he returned the look with a curious stare.

“Are you alright? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” Kaze said, offering a hand to him.

Leo cleared his throat awkwardly and shook his head. “I’m alright. Just a little lightheaded,” he said, deepening his voice the best he could without it sounding absurd to everyone around him.

Corrin eyed him strangely as Kaze helped him off the ground. Leo could feel a cold sweat drip down the back of his neck. “I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

Leo felt a rush of ice like heat run through his entire body as Corrin made the comment. “O-Of course not.” He cursed himself for sounding nervous and suspicious. He was lucky that Corrin shrugged off any sort of suspicion with their overwhelming naivety.

“We can’t just leave him here with that wound…” Corrin said, looking at Sakura for some kind of approval. She looked at Leo nervously, then looked at Corrin with a soft expression.

“Y-You’re right… But I don’t feel… um,” Sakura trailed off. It wounded Leo to see her get overwhelmed, but he needed to remember that this time things were going to be like this.

“You have no reason to distrust me. I have no intention on harming any of you,” Leo said, offering Sakura a kind smile. It seemed to ease her, but she still remained on edge.

“Alright… probably a good idea to recruit any viable fighters… Nohr has a very strong army.”

Right. Corrin was going up against the Nohrian army. Something that not even Leo could handle by himself. No one single person could. He could only nod in agreement and avoid making any eye contact.

“Well, if you’re willing to join our cause we’d be happy to have you,” Corrin continued, giving Leo a genuine smile.

He did have ulterior motives but had no other choice in the matter. His home country wanted him executed before the crown, and if any royal of Hoshido found out his identity he would be killed on the spot. Corrin’s pathetic attitude worked well for him. He returned the smile and nodded.

“Gladly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LIl things...  
> Sakura isnt "shy" she has anxiety. Those KamuSakura fics are extremely OOC so let me just... put that out there that her hesitation is based upon literal anxiety about strangers instead of SHYNESS. like lol wtf i hate that characterization because thats not how shy is  
> I'll prob draw a picture of how Leo looks on twitter but HEY YOU WANNA DO IT GO FOR IT!? HELL YEAH!? I WILL LOVE YOU FOR THAT!?  
> And yeah i know Leo hadnt introduced himself as Leon and i know its stupid but if he went by like Francisco i doubt he'd respond so its like... idk. I know its dumb lmao  
> \fINALLY I GOT THIS CHAPTER OUT OF THE WAY SO I CAN GET ON TO THE LEOKUMI DAYS!!! and the next death of taku (yeah its gonna be like Kagerou Days hahahahahahahHAHAHAHAHHAHAH blame grace)


	9. Coward

Corrin kept eyeing Leo awkwardly as they travelled to Mokushu, a forest that was riddled with ninjas. They had heard word that one of Ryoma’s retainers, Kagero, had been held captive there and Corrin figured it was one step closer to finding Ryoma and Takumi.

In Izumo, they had learned that Takumi and Ryoma were beyond the Bottomless Canyon, and that was all the information that they could get. Leo didn’t enter the castle and only heard word from everyone else that had fought their way to the top of the tower.

It didn’t help that on the way to the forest, Leo’s horse kept reacting familiarly to Corrin and it made his disguise feel almost for naught. Leo continued to scold the horse by pulling on the reigns and whispering to her. Corrin couldn’t help but chuckle to themselves.

“Your horse seems to like me,” they said, petting the horse’s nose.

“Ah… well she’s… friendly,” Leo said, keeping things short.

“Come to think of it, I don’t think I caught your name,” Corrin said, putting a finger to their chin thoughtfully.

It came as a surprise that Leo hadn’t introduced himself at all despite the last couple of battles they had fought as a small army. Hinoka had given him the stink eye for the past while, and Oboro had been given him quite the relay of insults based upon his ‘Nohrian looks’ as she called it. He had held his tongue for days, not speaking a word to anyone. He was too worried about blowing his cover that he hadn’t told anyone his name or even had a conversation starting with a friendly greeting.

“Maybe he’s just a quiet man?” Oboro said, continuing to give Leo the evils. “Wouldn’t surprise me if such scum kept their mouth shut given the circumstance.”

“Oboro please…” Corrin said, sounding exasperated.

“Yeah Oboro… you gotta learn to be more accepting, yknow?” Hinata chimed in, placing his hand on Oboro’s shoulder. “The guy is fighting our cause!”

“Sorry,” she admitted. “I’m a little on edge. We have no idea where Lord Takumi is and it’s… unsettling and unnerving. I can’t relax.”

“I don’t blame you for hating Nohr,” Leo replied, letting out a sigh. “The country thrives from starving villages and destroying towns for the sake of population control and resource use.”

He wasn’t lying. Xander had told him how many times his father had sent Hans out to pillage a random village just for the sake of resource allocation. Food was short in the towns and for some reason the only solution that was ever brought up in court was mass murder.

This remark seemed to surprise the group; especially Corrin. They looked horrified at Leo, then traced their gaze to the ground.

“I never knew,” they muttered, sounding incredibly solemn. “Please don’t tell me that happened to you and your family.”

“Unfortunately,” Leo sighed, thinking back to the chaos in the court. He wouldn’t be surprised if they executed Camilla for helping him escape. A tinge of sadness pricked at him and he paused his thoughts. “They…” he trailed off, unable to finish his sentence as a sob became trapped in his throat.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to-“ Corrin yelped.

“No, its fine,” Leo interrupted. “Everything is temporary anyway.”

“Temporary?”

“Never mind,” Leo shook his head at Corrin’s question. It was unnecessary information for them. Its not like he could tell Corrin what to choose and how the next timeline would turn out. He was the only one who’s memories carried over anyway.

Corrin looked at him curiously as his demeanor changed drastically from nervous to almost depressed. They tried their best to avoid awkward confrontation and forgotten the purpose of the conversation in the first place.

“…. Its Leon by the way,” Leo said, hoping to end the conversation as quickly as possible.

“That’s… something easy to remember. I once knew someone… who I was close to with a similar name,” Corrin said, continuing to add to the awkward aura surrounding them.

It almost tore at Leo. The way Corrin spoke of him was with such familiarity yet this particular version of them left him and his family to rot in a dying country. He tightened his grip on the reigns, struggling to keep his voice level and calm in the face of such an ignorant version of someone he once called family.

“Azura… this road leads to a heavily forested area… are we sure that this is the right way?” Corrin asked, running ahead to catch up to Azura and Kaze.

“Yes, this is the correct way to get into Nohr. It also happens that Kaze informed me of Kagero being held here,” Azura said, pointing down the road with her staff.

_Back into Nohr?_  Leo thought. He looked around and it soon occurred to him that they were headed towards the sea and towards Cyrkensia. He thought it made sense. It would avoid most of the Nohrian army, and the army that Corrin had gathered thus far was laughable compared to what Nohr had as far as strength. Although, the chaos that Leo had caused may have disturbed any kind of strength it and may have taken away Xander as a commander. He very well knew that any other commander would be at a disadvantage with Leo around, as he knew every single tactic that they would command. Xander was the only one who was unpredictable on the battlefield and the only one he could not best in battle tactics on the battlefield rather than a chess board.

The people at the front of the group paused abruptly as a mage appeared before them. Leo nearly gasped in horror as he recognized the goofy outfit that he wore. It was _Zola._ Of all the mages in Nohr, Zola would know that Leo’s disguise is an illusion and not what he actually looks like. He paused and remained at the back of group.

“Zola what are you doing here?!” Corrin yelled, drawing their blade.

“No please! I seek refuge!” Zola replied, putting up his hands in surrender. “The word of my defeat reached a high commanding mage and my safety is threatened!”

Leo couldn’t hold his tongue, nor could he sit still and watch this sorry excuse for a person beg for mercy from a person that would it to him no questions asked. He dismounted from his horse and drew his ice blade.

“W-Wait! Why do _you_ have your sword drawn?!” Zola asked, sounding genuinely panicked.

“You don’t deserve refuge,” Leo said, his voice practically drenched in venom.

“Wait… that voice. I know who you are,” Zola replied, sounding sly. Leo pressed the tip of the blade closer to Zola’s throat.

“Hold your tongue or I’ll slit your throat,” Leo said, pinning the other mage down to the floor.

“Leon what are you doing?!” Corrin yelled, trying to pull his arm back.

“’Leon’? Is that what you’re honestly going by now? To think I feared you at one point!” Zola laughed. “That’s such a ridiculous name to go by!”

“Wait whats going on?” Corrin asked, loosening their grip.

“And to think you were dead! You just faked it with illusion magic! And you called me a coward! You’re the one under a false guise in Hoshido!” Zola continued to laugh.

“What is he talking about Leon?” Corrin asked, looking both confused and hurt.

Leo looked behind him to see Oboro readying her lance and Hinata drawing his sword. Leo cursed to himself and shoved the sword closer into Zola’s neck.

“P-Please milord have mercy on me,” Zola squeaked.

“Did he just say ‘milord’?” Oboro commented.

“Yeah I’m pretty sure he did…” Hinata added.

“He’s mad! He’s positively mad!” Leo yelled. “Let me dispatch this coward before he proves himself to be harmful!”

“Leon wait,” Corrin said, placing a hand on Leo’s wrist. “Why did he call you that?”

All eyes were on Leo, as if he were the traitor in the situation. He grit his teeth and his illusion began to falter. His hair turning back to its regular colour, and his eyes returning to their maroon hue. He stared daggers at Zola for revealing him like this.

“Leo?!” Corrin yelled, taken aback.

“I knew we couldn’t trust him!” Oboro yelled, quick to point her blade at Leo’s throat.

“Who’s the worse offender here?!” Leo yelled, angered by the hostility. “ _He_ tried to actually kill you while I have just been travelling alongside you! I intend to fight for you! My country wants me dead!”

Zola smirked at Leo, attempting to teleport himself back to Nohr. Leo noticed his circles and made a harsh swipe with his blade, taking his head clean off.

Corrin yelped in surprise and tumbled backwards. Hinata pulled Oboro back, realizing Leo’s intentions were not malicious but he very well knew Oboro didn’t see it like that.

“Why did you kill him!?” Corrin yelled, tears welling in their eyes.

“Why are you crying for a stranger? For a coward? He was going back to Nohr to bring more soldiers since my presence is now known. I was a dead man and now I’m not.”

Leo noticed how his company was shocked by his cold ways towards the situation. “I have a goal and putting any of you in harms way is not part of it. Will you allow me to continue onward with you?” He turned his question towards Corrin, still on the floor and still covered in dirt and tears.

Oboro gave Corrin some disapproving stares, while Sakura and Hinoka looked as though they would support them no matter the decision. Clearly, he had gained some trust from the sisters.

“Leo… I can’t believe you’d join me,” Corrin said, standing up. “Of all people I thought you’d be the most stubborn.”

“Funny how things change when your kingdom betrays you based upon nothing more than an accusation,” Leo said, turning his experiences into nothing more than humour.

“Oh you… weren’t kidding when you said you thought that-“ Corrin cut themselves off, realizing that there was a possibility that everyone they grew up with could be dead.

“Camilla helped me get away and I don’t know what happened after that… I abandoned everything I once knew and yet I can’t convince…” he then threw a dirty look at Oboro, who had her lance still held at the ready.

“Oboro put the lance down please…” Corrin begged.

“Fine. I still don’t trust you,” Oboro replied, handing her lance to Hinata. He very well knew even if she was just holding it she would just go for Leo.

“Do you trust me enough?” Leo asked, returning his gaze to Corrin.

Corrin sighed. “Of course I do.”

“You’re a fool for trusting so blindly.” Leo sheathed his sword and returned to his horse. “I have a singular goal. That is it.”

“That’s fine. As long as you don’t… hurt any of us,” Corrin said, avoiding eye contact.

“You have my word,” Leo replied.

Leo looked onward to the forest, still uneasy of what may come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pacing thy name is Ollie. Okay so you know how in birthright Leo threatens Zola after the shit in Izumo? Yehahahah i forgot about it. SO UM... he dead now. Running on altered canon is weird.  
> Okay next time on this trainwreck takumi is gonna show up like sup bitches and then yeah. Grace knows whats up ; ) Hi Grace.   
> Also i kinda want this part to be a slow burn but at the same time i dont want a 30 chapter fanfic because i feel like that just turns new readers away and im like hnngh no thats WAY TOO MUCH.  
> im fighting myself on whether or not to make it happy ending... because you know im fuckin evil and i will make it sad if i WANT. AND I LOVE MAKING THINGS SAD SO MUCH LIKE LOOK AT MY FIC REPERTOIRE. GO LOOK AT SOMETHING I WROTE BECAUSE @LEOKUMIFUCKER DREW SOMETHING SAD AND IM LIKE YEAH IM GONNA MAKE LEO DIE THIS TIME HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.   
> But yeah those are my thoughts.  
> Thank you so much for your kind comments on chapter 8 it pushed me to get this part out nice and quick but its still quality i had to give myself a BOOST. I was listening to a combo playlist of Vocaloid songs and PMMM soundtrack because that inspires me the most for some reason? Idk i feel like im rambling at this point  
> Go listen to Trickle's cover of Snobbism its awesome  
> Okay im done now bye hahah hope you enjoyed this chapter and i'll see you in chapter 10


	10. Melody

The forest ahead was incredibly dense and had a canopy that stole almost all the light from the forest floor. Leo was taken aback by how lush the forest was, his mind immediately thinking back to the Woods of the Forlorn. He stared in wonder at the different kinds of plants, wishing he had the time to catalog them all for future reference. He suddenly felt something sharp poke his back and his attention was soon taken by Hinoka pointing her lance in his direction. He mentally corrected himself: Naginata.

“Keep walking Nohrian,” she said, her voice cold. “Even if Kamui trusts you, I don’t.”

Leo felt the urge to shoot the princess a filthy look, but he was more confused at the name that Hinoka called Corrin.

“What did you just call them?” he asked, keeping his voice level to try an attempt at being at least a little civil with the person who quite literally held him at the point of a blade.

“ _Kamui_ ,” she repeated in a condescending manner. “Its their birthname. I assume you’re too stuck in your ways to understand that. Since you’ve known them as a false name for both your and their entire lives.”

Leo couldn’t help but sigh at Hinoka’s attitude. He very well knew that there was probably little he could do to gain her trust and knew that she could easily spear him before he could utter a word. His cocky attitude didn’t stop him.

“I thought I had gained some trust with you by getting rid of that mage that could have probably summoned enough soldiers to kill us all,” he tried his best not to sound snarky to Hinoka, but judging by the blade poking him enough to bleed he had probably sounded incredibly snarky.

“Hinoka,” Corrin lowered her naginata. “Now is not the time.”

Leo turned to continue towards the forest, reigns in hand. He was incredibly uneasy with what awaited them. The two sisters kept their distance from Leo and made it evident that they didn’t trust him in the slightest. Sakura was kinder about it for certain, but her anxious state ate at Leo. He couldn’t help but feel the need to dote on her much like he did for Elise.

“Oh goodness,” Sakura commented, placing a hand gently on Leo’s back. He jumped at the touch, not knowing she had been so close.

“Its not that bad is it?” he asked, turning his head a bit to look at her.

“If its uncomfortable for you I can heal it,” she said, preparing her festal.

“Oh no need,” Leo reassured. “Don’t waste the use. We might need it later.”

She smiled and carried on ahead, catching up to Azura quickly.

He was then reminded that Azura didn’t trust him entirely. It was evident in the way that she talked to him and her body language while she was around him. It was if the only one who was blind to danger was Corrin, which didn’t surprise Leo in the slightest. They were unable to detect any danger in anyone and it irritated Leo. He couldn’t help but shoot some dirty looks to the back of their head as they continued on.

Soon Leo found a dagger against his throat. He stopped dead in his tracks and soon realized it was Kaze. When did he become so ready to defend Corrin like this?

“I would appreciate it if you could stop giving Corrin those looks,” he said, his words practically soaked in venom.

“Relax. I’m not about to jeopardize my chances of survival by hurting the leader of your group here,” he pushed the dagger away with his finger.

“I can never be too careful,” Kaze replied, removing his dagger from Leo’s throat.

Mokushu was the forest that was ahead. It was an incredibly dense forest that was known for being neutral in the age of conflict. New power had found its way into the forest, and the once neutral territory was shrouded with something mischievous and corrupted.

The ground was riddled with traps, as Leo soon found out. His horse was spooked by the appearance of spikes on the ground that he had to travel the terrain by foot. Silas’ horse was equally as spooked by the sudden appearance of the traps and the two were stuck fighting on foot. Silas seemed incredibly uneasy with that possibility, but Leo was equally as nervous without his tome. He couldn’t give himself away to every ninja in the forest however. It was much too risky.

He was both angry and curious as to why Corrin and Azura were travelling the terrain with no shoes. Any sharp objects in the ground and they would be unable to fight and unable to move. It was as if the land was bending to their will and it was then that Leo remembered the power of Dragon Veins. The power of dragon blood gave the Hoshidan royals, Corrin, Azura and himself power over the land and could change the conditions to best suit their favour. The traps were soon covered with dirt and bamboo that was soft enough to step on.

His mind had been so fogged from everything that had happened that the existence of such a thing was the least important thing for him to remember.

“I honestly forgot about Dragon Veins,” Leo said, keeping his voice low.

“To be honest I have built up tolerance to rougher terrains,” Corrin replied, also keeping the volume down. “I’m a dragon so its pretty easy to walk on spikes and not get hurt.”

Well at least that was something that he didn’t need to worry about. Like he would anyway.

“Wait, whats that up ahead?” Hinoka called out, pointing out a figure in the distance.

Leo followed Hinoka’s finger and squinted at the mysterious figure in the distance, at least a hundred feet away. He knew that silhouette well. The ponytail swaying from the light wind, the fur that sat around his waist was clear to see from the distance, and of course the blue glow of his bow that illuminated his soft features.

Leo felt his heart skip a beat and choked on the sharp breath of relief that rose in his throat. He was alive but… why was he drawing an arrow?

“Takumi!” Hinoka cried, rushing over as quickly as she could.

She was stopped dead in her tracks as Takumi fired an arrow directly at her. All eyes turned to Takumi, shocked and in disbelief.

“Hinoka! Stay away from those arrows!” Leo yelled. She shot him a look, then complied with his order.

“Brother! What are you doing?!” Sakura cried, her voice sounding as though it would shatter.

Something wasn’t right, and Leo knew exactly what it was.

Then something struck him as peculiar. Iago was dead. How could Takumi still be possessed if it was Iago that acted as a catalyst for that vile dragon to take control of him? Then it occurred to Leo, that dragon didn’t require a catalyst. As long as Takumi’s mental fortitude was weak, he was a target and easily controlled.

Without a second thought, Leo grabbed Azura’s hand and ran towards him. She let out a startled sound and did her best to keep up with Leo’s sprint.

“Leo! What are you doing?!” she yelped, barely able to keep up. Leo didn’t offer an answer. He kept his concentration on Takumi, who was readying another set of light arrows. Takumi fired arrows at the two with reckless abandon, and Leo did his best to avoid them all acting as a shield for Azura when need be.

“What are you planning?” she asked, sounding slightly nervous running behind Leo.

“I need you to sing. He’s being controlled by something from your world,” Leo said, losing concentration on Takumi long enough to take an arrow to the shoulder.

He stopped dead in his tracks retracting his hand from Azura’s and placing it on the wound where the arrow had already disappeared. He hated how it was so easy for Takumi to fire away at the two of them due to his enchanted bow.

“Gods! Are you sure that’s what will fix it?” She asked, kneeling beside him and taking a good look at the wound. It was much deeper than the arrow let on.

“Y-Yes! Please just do it,” Leo said, his voice strained.

He could tell that Azura was concerned with the information that Leo knew, he could see the hesitation in her eyes. They burned with something he had never seen from her before; fear and suspicion.

Out of the corner of his eye, Leo could see Takumi start to take aim once again. He stood in front of Azura to provide cover as she sang. Takumi let another arrow lose and it connected with Leo’s ankle. He winced but did not falter. Azura hesitated, placing a hand on Leo’s shoulder. She urged him to run back and not act as cover.

“Please Azura just sing!” he yelped. Azura nodded and sang that familiar melody.

Leo had heard it a few times before, mostly in Valla. He hated himself for forcing Azura to do this due to the consequences of her land, but something in the back of his mind kept telling him that this was all temporary. This wasn’t the true ending he was aiming for.

Takumi groaned, dropping his bow and placing both hands on his head. Leo saw that as an opportunity to get the bow away from him. He ran over and grabbed the Fuujin Yumi, but to his surprise he could not lift it. The bow was incredibly heavy to him. All he could do was drag it away as Azura neared him, humming the melody to Takumi.

“Nngh, Azura?” He groaned, removing his hands from his head.

“Yes! Yes its me,” she said, with a clear sigh of relief.

She placed both of her hands on Takumi’s head gently and hummed the melody quietly to him to rid him of any pain from the possession. He whined quietly and placed a hand on hers, feeling some sort of relief from it.

Leo collapsed to the ground soon after, his ankle aching from the arrow. He turned around to see Sakura rushing towards him, tears in her eyes and a festal in hand. Hinoka had both of her hands over her mouth in shock. Corrin stood there dumbfounded, a look that Leo knew they would be holding. He didn’t think too highly of this version of Corrin to begin with.

“Thank you so much!” Sakura cried, soon throwing herself onto Leo. Leo winced in pain as she threw her arms over his wounded shoulder.

“I-It was no problem. That shoulder is really sore,” he said, his voice strained.

“Oh gods! I’m so sorry,” she said, soon getting off him and using her festal on his wounds.

“I suppose its safe to say that you trust me now,” Leo said.

“You saved my brother,” Sakura said with a small smile. “I owe you a debt that I can probably never repay.”

“No no,” Leo said, shaking his head. “You owe it to Azura. She’s the one who actually saved him.”

“I never knew a Nohrian could be so humble,” Hinoka said, jumping off her Pegasus. “I also would like to thank you for reminding me not to fly headfirst into a barrage of arrows.”

“I don’t blame you if you still have your doubts,” Leo said, his gaze shifting from the sisters to Azura and Takumi. The both of them looked at him with a look of suspicion.

Azura rushed over. Leo couldn’t help but give her an anxious look before she dragged him by the arm to speak with him privately.

As soon as she was sure that they weren’t within earshot of the others, she pinned Leo to a tree with the handle of her lance. He did hold a height advantage over her, but that didn’t stop her from holding the bar directly across his shoulders.

“How did you know what that was, and how did you know that my voice would fix it?” she asked, her calm voice she normally had was no where to be found. “And how did you end up in my land to begin with? Neither of the royal families know of its existence. The rumour died with my mother, and that was before you were old enough to walk.”

Leo was taken aback by the venom she spat at him. Her eyes held a fire unlike anything Leo had ever seen.

“Speak damn you!” she yelled, pushing the bar harder against his shoulders, pressing harder against the wounded one.

“I-I thought I explained while in V-“ Leo paused. “While I was there.”

“Go on, speak its name. I dare you,” Azura seethed.

“I very well know what will become of me and that is a fate that I’m not ready to accept!” Leo retaliated, grabbing the bar of the lance and pushing it downwards, releasing himself from her grip.

“I understand that my actions are suspicious and I don’t blame you for seeing me as a threat but I implore you to reconsider your decision,” Leo said, still holding the bar down with more strength than he could have imagined using against Azura.

“How do you know what you know,” her question couldn’t be more loaded if she tried.

“Wait a minute… we met in your land. How do you not remember what I told you?” he asked, turning suspicion against her.

“I don’t know… what you’re referring to,” her suspicion faded and soon turned to fear. “I think it was the silent dragon playing a trick on you if you did see something like that.”

“Well that explains the hallucinations I experienced,” Leo sighed and let go of the lance.

“That was the silent dragon… You know what he can do already since you knew that I could help Takumi,” Azura said, clutching her pendent.

“He took advantage of my poor disposition, and now he knows… If he exists the same way across time then…” Leo trailed off.

“I doubt that,” Azura reassured. “I’m pretty sure you’re the only one that knows of any other time.”

“I’m sorry that I startled you,” Leo said, looking somewhat sheepish in his apology. “That was never my intent.”

“Its fine Leo,” Azura smiled. “At least I know I can trust you now.”

The two soon returned to the group, and Leo could feel Takumi stare daggers into him. It hurt him to see Takumi so angry with his appearance.

“What is _he_ doing here?!” Takumi yelled, reaching for his bow.

“Takumi don’t,” Hinoka said, pulling his bow away from him.

“Hinoka are you mad?!” Takumi replied, dumfounded by his sister’s decision.

“He’s the one who had the brilliant idea to save you from whatever was possessing you,” Hinoka said, sounding incredibly stern. “I’d show a little more gratitude if I were you.”

Leo nodded at Hinoka in thanks. Takumi stared at Leo in disdain, unable to bring himself to offer an apology or even a thank you. Leo fought everything within him that told him to be familiar with Takumi. He thought that he could spark some familiarity into him like he did in the previous timeline, but he had to be careful.

“Why is he smiling like that? Its weird,” Takumi said, breaking eye contact.

Leo then realized he probably had an incredibly warm smile directed at Takumi and he looked away in embarrassment.

“Sorry,” Leo said, covering his face.

He mentally kicked himself for looking so awkward in front of Takumi and soon realized that things would not be as easy as they seemed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the ACTUAL 10th chapter. Thank you so much for your kind words they pushed me to continue writing and i was able to actually get something i was happy with enough to publish. Thank you so so much <3 i hope you enjoyed this chapter and i will try and get back on a more regular upload schedule!


	11. Guilt and Betrayal

Leo struggled to refrain from staring at Takumi affectionately. Every time Takumi caught him, he looked away and darted his eyes towards the ground. Leo cursed to himself frequently and Takumi thought that the Nohrian was incredibly odd. He left it up to Leo being foreign, but something didn’t sit right in the pit of his stomach. Certain glances that Leo would give him would send adrenaline shooting through him, and he felt like he had butterflies fluttering around his insides. He was incredibly unsure of what to make of the feelings and made small unconscious gestures such as fiddling with his hair and pulling it back behind his ear. Leo remembered all those gestures from when they first began awkwardly flirting with one another.

Sadness began to eat him as Sakura would interact with her brother in a manner similar to what Elise used to do. The fact that he couldn’t see her again in this timeline, and that he had doomed her to a horrible fate, was almost too much guilt for him to take.

Their next destination took them to the sea between Hoshido and Cyrkensia. There they were aided by a Kinshi Knight by the name of Yuugiri. Leo then remembered how much the creatures despised him and he soon learned not to get too close to the creatures. Takumi made fun of Leo profusely for being constantly pecked at and squawked at.

Leo was sitting in the bowels of the ship, away from the water and away from the idea of motion sickness. The waves lapping up against the boat was louder where he was and he still felt sick, but somehow not seeing it helped. He had been looking through some crates for a vulnerary for his head, bruised from the vindictive kinshi.

“Man, that thing really doesn’t like you,” Takumi said, arms folded and a snarky grin crawling across his face.

“They usually don’t like men. I need to remember that,” Leo said, hands on his head.

“That’s pegasi, not kinshis,” Takumi corrected him, sitting down next to him.

“Oh whatever. Keep me away from things that fly then,” Leo said, sounding irritated.

“Relax I’m not here to chastise you,” Takumi said, removing one of Leo’s hands from his head to get a better look at the wounds from the Kinshi’s beak. Leo couldn’t help but feel his face flush with heat as Takumi gently sifted through his hair.

“Good news is that it didn’t peck you hard enough to make you bleed,” Takumi said, almost to himself. He continued to sift until he did find a small sore spot and Leo winced.

“Oh damn, sorry,” Takumi said, retracting his hands immediately. Leo looked up at Takumi curiously and could see concern splashed across his face.

“Oh its fine,” Leo said, ruffling his own hair up a little to correct where it was sitting. “I once had my sister’s wyvern try and bite my ear off.” He said that in jest, but soon realized that Takumi had been completely horrified by it.

“Tried to… bite your ear off,” he repeated, sounding incredibly taken aback. “Keep me away from wyverns.”

Leo couldn’t help but chuckle. “Takumi it was my own fault that she did that. I kept pulling on her tail. I was quite young when this happened.”

Takumi made an enlightened expression, then returned to sneering. “So, you pissed her off, huh?”

Leo sighed, allowing Takumi to take some pleasure in his misfortune. “Yes, I did.”

“Its okay. I’ve had my sister’s Pegasus bite me before,” Takumi said, showing Leo the scars on his hand.

“Same reason?” Leo asked, gently taking Takumi’s hand and getting a better look at the horse teeth markings in his hand.

“Same reason,” Takumi said, sighing in defeat.

The two held hands for quite awhile before Takumi realized what was happening and retracted his hand quickly, avoiding eye contact with Leo for some time. Leo thought it was cute and struggled not to make any sound as Takumi did his nervous hair playing and fiddled with the fur wrapped around his waist.

“C-Can I ask you something?” Takumi said, still avoiding eye contact.

“What is it?” Leo replied, hoping that Takumi would face him soon.

“Why is it that I’m… so incredibly drawn to you?” Takumi said, almost struggling to ask his question. He then turned to Leo, his face incredibly flushed. “Its… not some kind of magic is it? Some kind of…” he trailed off, making an anxious sound.

“I don’t ever use magic to force people into doing things Takumi,” Leo said, almost reassuringly. He could tell that the feeling made Takumi uneasy.

“I… feel as though I need you,” Takumi said. He sounded somewhat weepy and that made Leo want to embrace the other prince, but hesitated. He wanted to wait until Takumi gave him the okay to.

“I don’t even know you but I can’t shake the feeling that I do,” he continued, laughing to himself at how ridiculous he must have sounded. “I feel… as though I love you.”

Hearing those words sent Leo over the edge and he struggled not to tear up. The last time he heard that from Takumi was when he was dying in his arms.

“L-Leo?” Takumi reached out to grab Leo’s hand in concern. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No. No you’re fine,” Leo wiped up his tears in embarrassment and looked at Takumi. “I need to admit something to you.”

“A-are you using magic?” Takumi asked, his suspicions growing.

“I am but not to manipulate you,” Leo admitted, pulling Brynhildr out of its pouch. “There’s a reason I’m here and not in Nohr.”

Takumi looked at him confused and concerned. He backed away from him slightly, almost in fear. Leo shook his head. “There’s nothing to fear I promise you. I swear to you on my life.”

He soon showed Takumi the ring on his finger and his eyes lit up with enlightenment. Takumi took hold of Leo’s hand, inspecting it carefully.

“Why do I remember this?”

Suddenly everything started to make sense. It made sense that in the previous time loop Takumi had some semblance of the past and knew that they were connected through the red string of fate. It made sense that Takumi felt that he loved Leo without even knowing who he was.

Leo’s memories weren’t the only ones that carried over from time loop to time loop.

“Wait we… we were together…” Takumi murmured, turning over Leo’s hand. “We were going to get married after the war… Why do I know this?” Takumi looked up at Leo in somewhat distressed confusion.

“This is a different timeline Takumi,” Leo explained. “You… died in mine… and I came back because I love you and I wanted to save you from that fate.”

“You really did this… for me? Takumi said, noting the large slash on Leo’s hand. Leo nodded in response.

“You really love me that much…” Takumi almost sounded like he was in disbelief. Leo nodded again.

“That explains all the staring,” he said with a chuckle. “I thought you wanted to fight me or something I couldn’t make out the expression.” Leo couldn’t help but laugh.

Leo took hold of Takumi’s hand with his free hand. Takumi’s gaze met Leo’s and he couldn’t help but lean into him, overwhelmed with feelings of affection for the person in front of him who was practically a stranger. Everything Leo had said to him could have been a lie but Takumi believed him. There wasn’t a reason to not believe him. The memories were all there. He could see Leo being that devoted.

He closed his eyes and their lips met.

Takumi could remember the softness of Leo’s lips against his own. He smiled into the kiss and Leo couldn’t help but do the same. He knew this was a step closer to his goal.

Leo cursed himself internally for hoping this loop would be a failed one due to how he doomed his family and his retainers. It wasn’t right to have this be the end. He knew something had to give.

A small shriek interrupted their moment of intimacy. Takumi spun around to see the hem of Sakura’s skirt behind a wooden doorway. He cursed to himself and got up off the wooden bench.

“Sakura how much did you see or hear,” he asked.

“I-I just saw you two…” she trailed off, sounding incredibly bashful. She turned the corner holding some Hoshidan armor in her hands. It was lightweight and obviously handmade. “Oboro asked me to bring this down to you!” she yelped, extending the clothes out to Leo from the doorframe.

Both princes were incredibly surprised.

“I thought she hated me.”

“I thought she didn’t trust him.”

“Well she thought it would be a better disguise… Since we are going to the Nohr opera house and rumor is that the king will be there,” she stammered.

Leo dropped his tome and his jaw. He froze, heart hammering in his throat. “M-My father… is going to be there?”

Sakura nodded. Takumi turned around to Leo, sensing the anxiety in his voice.

“I’ll keep you hidden its no problem,” he said, trying his best to be reassuring.

“Takumi you don’t understand,” Leo began to panic. “My father thinks I’m dead. If I’m not dead there is a good chance I will be killed on site. My father’s stupid advisor accused me of treason and my own family had to get me out so I wouldn’t die. My older sister is probably dead because she helped me escape!”

Sakura dropped the garments and put her hands to her face. Takumi’s eyes widened.

“So… you’re saying that… This entire timeline is not the final?” he said, suddenly understanding the weight of the situation. “So either you or I is going to die…”

“No!” Leo yelped slamming his hand down on a table and startling Sakura. “No this cannot end this way!”

“Leo please calm down,” Takumi put both his hands up and walked towards Leo, eventually placing them on his shoulders. “Please…”

Leo looked past Takumi to see Sakura gripping the doorframe tightly with tears in her eyes. He has successfully freaked her out enough to make her panic too and he felt terrible instantly.

“Gods I’m so sorry,” he said, bringing a hand to his face in shame.

“You have every right to be scared about what’s to come but please put trust in us. We won’t allow anything back to happen to you,” Takumi struggled to stay reassuring. He knew that one of them was going to die. He could feel it in his gut and he was hardly ever wrong.

*             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *            

They had reached Cyrkensia in a day.

The sea was incredibly calm for the voyage to the port. Leo was thankful for the sea to calm itself on the latter half of the voyage. His stomach had already been doing somersaults from his fears of what was to come. He had been tempted to cast another illusion spell but knowing Zola he couldn’t get away with it easily. The other mages of the court would see through his illusion easily.

Takumi took hold of Leo’s hand gently and subtly. It was a gesture that told him to calm himself a little before what was about to happen. They didn’t know what laid ahead but still couldn’t shake the feeling that something would go wrong.

Leo could see his brother in the distance and fought everything inside him to tell Xander that he was live. He wanted to tell his entire family that he was still alive. His heart broke when Xander looked up with an expression he had never seen before. He looked almost broken inside.

“Takumi, I have to see my brother,” Leo said, his voice nearly breaking.

“You can’t risk breaking your cover though Leo,” Takumi said, pulling Leo’s hand back gently.

“I’ve never seen him like that before in my life,” Leo pleaded Takumi to let him go.

“Leo just wait,” Azura said, holding her lance in front of him. “We’ll be entering the Opera House soon and you’ll see him, but I cannot guarantee that you’ll have a positive reunion.”

Leo’s heart sank. He knew that his father would have punished all of his siblings severely and he only hoped that Xander didn’t suffer for his actions.

He decided not to listen to Azura and pulled his hand from Takumi’s grip once he felt his hand loosen. He ran behind a Nohrian carriage to keep himself covered. He could see both Azura and Takumi looking at him in panicked frustration as he navigated his way through the crowd of guards. His heart sank further when he noticed that his own brother was in chains. Elise was in the same state and Leo wanted to run out and free both of them if he wouldn’t get caught. Camilla was no where in sight and Leo automatically assumed the worst.

Rage replaced the sadness when he noticed his father’s advisor was _alive_. He slammed his hand into the carriage in frustration. How in the name of the Dusk Dragon was that vile creature still alive? Niles had shot an arrow directly into his head there was no way he could have come back from that.

It then occurred to Leo that a very particular staff existed for the sake of reviving those from the dead: Bifrost. Elise had told him about it multiple times and she dreamed of being able to use it one day. There must have been someone in the court that day that could use it and Garon ordered it to happen. It definitely explained how Takumi was possessed earlier since Iago acted as a catalyst for the possession.

Some of the guards heard Leo smack the carriage and went around the side to see… nothing. Leo quickly climbed atop the carriage and grabbed the fabric covering the window of the carriage to disguise himself atop the dark vehicle. He could see Odin and Niles amongst the crowd. Leo felt intense anger towards his father as he saw Niles covered in bruises and blood and Odin wasn’t much better. He hated his father for this. He hated his entire kingdom for this.

Niles caught Leo’s eye atop the carriage and gave him a sly smirk, almost impressed and proud that Leo had stayed alive as long as he had in Hoshido. Odin followed Niles’ gaze and refrained from yelling out and making a scene. He simply smiled and winked. It hurt Leo to see his retainers in such rough shape no thanks to his father’s guards.

He looked over to see both Azura and Takumi start to make their way into the opera house, alongside more of Corrin’s army. Leo waited until Garon was out of sight to hop down from the carriage and catch up to his brother. He cast a quick spell that he knew off hand to disguise his voice to all others except for Xander, as the guards would know Leo’s voice easily. With the cloth from the carriage over his head, he carefully made his way down and caught up to Xander with ease as he was slowed down by the crowd.

Leo quickly ran up behind Xander and pulled on his cape to get his attention. Xander’s lack of a reaction hurt Leo severely, as if he was used to the rough treatment by that time. He knew it had only been a month. Leo pulled a little harder and Xander turned around. His expression changed almost instantly from something distraught to hopeful.

“Don’t make a huge scene they’ll execute me on sight,” Leo whispered, trying to fiddle with the chains to get them off.

“I’m so happy you’re alive… We were all told you were killed by Faceless at Fort Dragonfall,” Xander whispered, pulling his hands up away from Leo’s and pulled his brother into a hug.

A few of the guards were privy to their conversation, watching the prince carefully.

“Careful Xander,” Leo whispered harshly. “Their suspicions are high.”

“Don’t worry,” Xander said. “Not a single soldier here is allowed to do anything since we’re in a peaceful territory.”

Leo could feel the glares in the back of his head.

“Are you sure Xander,” he said, ready to draw the sword at his waist.

“Yes,” Xander nodded. “I’m just happy to see you alive. Camilla had told us something was up with you and we trusted anything you did. Calling it treason was preposterous.”

“So is she still?” Leo couldn’t bring himself to literally ask if she was still alive.

Xander’s expression returned to how it had been before, sullen. He shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid not.”

Leo could feel anger burn up inside him as he could imagine what kind of things would have been done to her. Xander could feel his little brother shake in his arms.

“I need you to stay calm. You said you were using magic before, correct?” Xander said.

Leo was incredibly shocked. He hadn’t said anything of the sort to this Xander at all. “How do you know?”

“Just a hunch,” he shrugged. “By the way you acted I know that you’re not the same Leo I grew up with. That doesn’t matter to me though. You’re still my brother and you’ll make things right. I know you will.”

“Of course I will!” he said, struggling not to yell. “That was the whole point of this. I have to make things right. Not just for myself but for everyone else too.”

Xander hugged onto Leo one last time before sending him out amongst the crowd of soldiers.

“Make this right.”

*             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *             *            

Xander’s words echoed in his head. Leo couldn’t even hear the scolding he received from Azura for running off into what could have very well been his death. He looked over at Takumi, anxiously looking down at the stage and hated himself for what he might have to do.

Azura soon left their side and walked down towards the stage. Their plan was to expose Garon for the demon he was using Azura’s song. She knew that Anankos had an influence over him as well from the way he acted, and Leo should have seen it sooner. The tyrant that sat across the theater was not his father and hadn’t been for a long time. Why couldn’t he have noticed it sooner.

He hated himself for putting Camilla in the situation that ended her life and for putting Xander and Elise in a compromising situation as well. He very well knew that Xander could be killed next just by talking to him.

“Is everything okay?” Takumi asked, pulling Leo from his catatonic state.

“Mm,” was all he could manage.

“Leo what happened?” Takumi asked, sitting next to Leo much like he had on the ship.

“I’m sorry Takumi,” Leo said, resting his head in his hands.

“Sorry? For what?” Takumi asked, placing a hand delicately on Leo’s shoulder.

“This isn’t the end of the road,” Leo muttered, choking on a sob in his throat. “There’s still more that we need to go through.”

“So… one of us is going to die after all…” Takumi trailed off. “I don’t understand.”

“This magic isn’t perfect Takumi. There are consequences every time,” Leo lifted his head and looked at the hand he had cut the first time. It was starting to turn black. Takumi stood up abruptly from his seat and made a startled sound at the sight.

“I’ve made a mistake,” he said with a sad laugh.

Their conversation was interrupted by Azura’s performance. The two princes watched from the balcony as Azura danced. Her voice echoed through the hall and Leo was incredibly surprised to see water begin to form from her hands, as if it was some kind of magic. She danced elegantly as the water surrounded her. The water then dispersed into the air, causing waves to form along the small pool of water by the stage. The boats were rocked by the slight wave, but not enough to cause them to tip over.

“Wow, its beautiful isn’t it?” Takumi said, commenting on the water droplets in the air.

Leo’s eyes were too focused on his father, who started to shuffling uncomfortably in the throne like chair he had been given in the balcony across the theater. Even the soldiers began to seem uncomfortable within the chamber. He then saw the blinding light that was emitting from Azura’s pendent. Maybe that was the source of the magic.

This must have been some sort of signal, for Takumi pulled Leo away from the balcony and began to run down the stairs to the boats below. By then the soldiers also had begun to take to the boats, one forcing Elise to use a dragon vein to turn the water into ice. Corrin had already begun an instigation with Garon, causing more and more soldiers to pour out onto the newly formed ice. Among them was Iago who had Odin and Niles in tow. Leo glared at the mage and could see that Iago had some control over the both of them. They were both practically held at knife point.

“Lord Garon, Corrin isn’t the only traitor in our midst,” he said, practically announcing Leo’s presence.

“That isn’t true! I haven’t done anyth-“ he was cut off by an arrow being fired in his direction. It was Niles that had fired it.

“What have you done to them!? Niles would never fire an arrow at me like that!” Leo yelped. Suddenly everything that had happened felt as though it came tumbling down on Leo like boulders.

“Well you see,” Iago began. “Without a lord to guide them, they were quite easy to take up under my wing. Especially the young mage here.”

He picked Odin up by the cape around his neck, practically choking him as he did so.

“Put him down! He hasn’t done anything wrong!” Leo yelped, unsheathing his sword.

Doing as he was told, Iago dropped Odin to the ground. Odin gasped and coughed, placing a hand on his neck in shock. The two of his retainers were in a dangerous situation. One that Leo had caused.

Iago smirked and snapped his fingers. Leo didn’t understand why, until Takumi held a blade to his throat. He dropped his sword, unable to move. Iago had taken Takumi under his control again, and Azura had been held up by guards and couldn’t make her way over to him.

“Takumi you know better than this! You can fight it!” Leo said to him through grit teeth.

Leo managed to push Takumi’s hand away slightly and it was enough to gain the upper hand. He managed to pin Takumi to the ground, successfully disarming him. It then occurred to Leo that Iago was doing this on purpose so that the Hoshidans wouldn’t trust him, and he let Takumi up. He quickly reached for the knife and thus pinned Leo down underneath him. He held the knife above Leo’s head and couldn’t bring it down.

Leo could see Takumi’s internal fight in his eyes. The grip he had on the knife was loosening slightly and he eventually dropped it. He fought the idea given to him by Iago to wrap his fingers around Leo’s throat, but he couldn’t fight it hard enough.

Leo struggled to get Takumi off of him but didn’t have to. An arrow soon found itself lodged into Takumi’s head, and the grip loosened. Leo couldn’t help but watch in horror as Takumi slumped onto him, motionless. Leo looked over to where the arrow came from, and it was Niles who had fired the arrow. What burned Leo more was that Niles had fired it of his own accord. Iago had nothing to do with it.

Leo scrambled to get Takumi off him and couldn’t shake the shock that ripped him to his core. He couldn’t help but watch helplessly as the light faded from Takumi’s eyes. He could hear Sakura scream in the distance and Hinoka yell something in her native language that he didn’t understand. He stared down at Takumi as crimson red began to run through his warm grey hair. His hands shook as he placed them gently on Takumi’s head.  His eyes burned as he directed his glare to Iago who had orchestrated the whole plot. Iago could only give Leo a sly grin as he praised Niles for his actions. Leo could see that Niles couldn’t even make eye contact with Leo ashamed of what he had done.

“You bastard! I’ll kill you with my own hands!” Leo picked up his sword and ran for Iago, soon met with dozens of guards. Leo had no problem slicing through them, drenching himself in the blood of his own kinsmen and eventually reaching Iago, pointing the blade at his throat. The only thing that stopped him was Niles holding a blade to Leo’s in turn.

“Niles what are you doing?” Leo seethed, still burning with rage. “I order you to move the blade!”

“Its not my wish I swear to you,” Niles replied, clearly regretting his actions.

“Oh, he can’t do that,” Iago said, clearly glowing in pride before Garon. “If they disobey any order of mine the rest of the soldiers here will tear them limb from limb.”

“How dare you do this to my retainers!” Leo yelled.

“Well what are you waiting for second prince of Nohr? Can I even call you that anymore in your state of exile?” Iago taunted him. It was as if something slimy and disgusting made its away around Leo’s head. That is how Iago’s words sounded to him.

Leo yelled something unintelligible and thrust the blade into Iago’s throat, feeling a sharp pain in his chest.

It burned. He could taste metal in his mouth. All he could see through the blur of tears in his eyes was Elise’s crying face and Xander’s dismay.

Then it all disappeared into that familiar glow of light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahahahahh niles killed leo. Niles killed Takumi.  
> AND ITS ALL IAGO'S FAULT.  
> DIDNT EXPECT THAT ONE DID YA!  
> Also if you like this fic and want to support me here is my kofi! https://ko-fi.com/caledfwelsh it would help a whole lot!  
> Also please consider commissioning me if you like what kind of things i write!  
> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dgfr_65XkAE3s_q.jpg


	12. The Price

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning in this chapter because begging for death is gonna be a theme  
> Also do NOT google putrefaction if you value your appetite. Just trust me when i say it nasty

Leo awoke to find himself in a bed. His first initial thought was panic and it was unclear whether or not he had died there in the theater. He patted his chest down to find he had been bandaged up. He looked down at his hand, black lines starting to form from where the cut was. He then stood up abruptly from the bed, then found himself collapsing against the floor. The loud thump drew enough attention to have Niles enter the room, practically tripping over himself to get in as fast as he could.

“Woah woah what are you doing? You shouldn’t be getting up,” Niles said, attempting to help Leo up.

“Don’t touch me!” Leo hissed, struggling to get up on his own.

“Okay… where is that coming from?” Niles asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

“What am I doing here? How did I end up here?!” Leo demanded, raising his voice.

“Alright first of all calm down,” Niles said, trying to peel back Leo’s defensive attitude. “I’m not the enemy.”

“Aren’t you?” Leo asked without thinking. “I thought you and Odin had to listen to Iago.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Niles asked, bringing his own defenses up. “If I had the choice of listening to him and betraying you or death you know what I would choose.”

“So… What was that at the opera house?” Leo asked in confusion.

“This… whole thing is incredibly confusing. First of all, you start bleeding randomly on the Plains of Hoshido and now you’re going on about things that never happened,” Niles said, picking Leo up without any warning.

“So… it did reset,” Leo muttered, allowing Niles to help him back into bed. Niles gave him a confused look. “Never mind.”

Suddenly the thought struck him. What did Corrin choose? He didn’t see. He didn’t even remember.

“Wait Niles what did Corrin choose?” His tone was urgent.

“I… didn’t hear. All I know is that more troops from both sides were brought in to deal with things,” Niles replied, addressing the urgency.

That wasn’t specific enough. In all instances more troops had been brought in to either deal with Corrin alone, their choice in Nohr or choice in Hoshido. He cursed to himself and hit his pillow in frustration.

“Wait a minute, why are you so interested in what they chose?” Niles asked, lifting Leo’s hand so he couldn’t hit the bed again. It was then that Niles saw the deep cut on his hand and the black marks that formed from it. His eye widened in concern and he yanked Leo closer, disregarding the prince’s pain from the other wound.

“What are you doing,” his question was an accusation. “Is Iago making you do nasty shit for him again?!”

Leo winced as Niles’ yanked him further towards him, almost forcing an answer out of him.

“No! I’m not- let go!” Leo yelped, pulling himself out of Niles’ grip. “Why are you being so aggressive about this!”

“Something is wrong with you! I’m worried about you!” Niles retaliated, dropping Leo against the floor. Niles soon recoiled and immediately helped Leo off the floor, looking over his hand and the wound on his chest.

“Gods I’m so sorry,” Niles said, pulling Leo close gently. “That was incredibly out of line I am so sorry.”

“No… You know our relationship by now. I’d rather you be aggressively concerned than apathetic to things,” Leo said, rubbing Niles’ back in reassurance.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Niles buried his head in Leo’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it okay? Its tough love,” Leo said, leaning his head against Niles’

“Milord! I heard a loud bang are you okay!?” Odin yelled from down the hallway, his voice gradually getting closer and closer. He reached the doorway and just about kicked the door in in concern. He also rushed in and gently hugged Leo from the side. Leo couldn’t help but laugh.

“I swear to god its like having a cat and a dog,” Leo said, leaning his head against Odin’s in affection.

“I’m guessing I’m the cat,” Niles said, a sly smile crawling across his face. “After all, I scratch and bite far too often.” As he said his lewd comment, he jokingly bit Leo’s collarbone lightly. This caused the prince to push Niles away instantly, accidentally elbowing Odin in the face during the maneuver.

“Glad to see you’re feeling more vigorous milord!” Odin said, his voiced pained and muffled from a hand over his mouth and nose.

“Gods Odin!” Leo yelled, soon turning to the mage whose face was dripping with blood. “I’m so sorry!”

“I’m happier that you’re feeling better,” Odin replied, taking his hands away from his face. Blood began to pour out of his nose soon after. “We were incredibly worried about you on the battlefield! Poor Lady Elise thought that you have been hit by a sniper and that you had died.”

 _It was that serious?_ Leo thought to himself, placing a hand on his chest.

“We must tell her of the news immediately,” Niles said, standing up off the floor. Odin soon found himself being dragged out of the room by the heels. “We need to give our lord a chance to rest. We shouldn’t bombard him with our boisterous presence right now.” Niles gave Leo a smile and dragged the boisterous mage away. Leo couldn’t help but chuckle, knowing that Niles was referring to Odin more so than himself.

Leo carefully hoisted himself back up onto his bed. He looked around the room and soon realized it was his own. He was worried about the backlash of the magic that he had used that he didn’t have the time or patience to actually look around the room. But if what Niles and Odin had said was true, then time truly did reset. He could only hope that Corrin had made the right decision, but he had no knowledge of the fact. It was unsettling and it made him uneasy. He placed a hand on his chest and felt bandages underneath his pajamas. Come to think of it who changed him? He assumed Niles since he was the only one that was comfortable doing it. He put the thought aside and relaxed into his bed. He didn’t feel any pain from the wound, which made him think that it was quickly healed on the battlefield. Elise most likely panicked and her healing wasn’t as effective as normal. At least that was the conclusion that Leo came to.

He tried to remember what had happened in the opera house, but most of it was a blur. All he could remember was Iago forcing Niles and Odin to betray him. He remembered seeing Xander in chains and Camilla had been executed. Leo shivered at the thought. He never wanted to relive that time. He slowly curled up on his bed, hugging his knees. He wanted to see his family more than anything right now, but it was probably not a good idea to be moving around with his injury. The wound was minor now, but he didn’t want to risk reopening it. Especially considering Elise would most likely jump on him when she saw him.

He peered up over his knees to look out his window, which provided an excellent view of the courtyard. It was dark, but there were lanterns and torches along the walls. He could also see the glow of Xander’s sword, Siegfried. His instinct at that moment was to reach of Brynhildr, as it held an unspoken connection to his brother. He reached under his pillow to where he usually kept it, but it was gone.

_What?!_

The tome was gone.

Leo quickly bolted up from his bed, soon feeling a throbbing pain shot through his body starting at his chest. He collapsed against the bed, hand clutching the fabric of his pajama shirt. The pain was immense, almost incapacitating him in the process. Was this more backlash from the spell? Leo’s eyes darted around the room and he eventually saw the tome sitting on a table close to the fire place in his room. He felt like an idiot for panicking over seemingly nothing. Leo sat back down on his bed and sighed. This timeline could possibly cause some problems.

Leo looked at his hand again. The palm was slowly turning black. Leo shivered. He had seen that kind of transformation on a body but it was a dead body. Did this mean that he was slowly dying and starting to putrefy? He opened and closed his hand, testing for feeling. Everything felt fine. He could move his hand properly and there was no loss of sensation in his hand. It was alarming but not enough to think that his body was slowly dying.

His worries were far from over.

“Leo! Thank gods you’re okay!”

Corrin ran into Leo’s room, dropping their sword at the door and rushing to his bedside. Leo’s heart dropped. Corrin chose Nohr again. Why did they choose Nohr again?

“W-Wait what are you doing here?” Leo asked, trying not to sound angry with their decision.

“I wanted to come home to my family here. You are my true family after all,” Corrin said, unable to read Leo’s frustration at all.

Leo gripped the sheets harshly, trying not to become angry with Corrin’s decision. He knew that the road couldn’t be over yet but he had still held hope. It took almost all his strength not to lay a hand on Corrin.

“How are you feeling though? Did you seriously get hit with an arrow?” Corrin reached out to Leo to see his wound. Leo smacked their hand away, and Corrin got a good look of Leo’s hand. They let out a startled sound and fell backwards onto the floor.

“L-Leo! What happened to your hand?!” they yelped.

“Oh this?” Leo said, struggling to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “This is because YOU can’t seem to make the RIGHT decision!” Leo stood up abruptly from his bed, and soon regretted doing so. He did his best to ignore his pain and continue to antagonize Corrin.

“W-What do you mean?” they stammered, backing up away from Leo.

“You can’t do anything right!” Leo kicked Corrin’s leg out from underneath them, causing them to hit the ground painfully. “You keep thinking that you’re making the right decision by selfishly choosing one or the other!”

“Leo I-I don’t understand!” Corrin whined, starting to panic from his sudden attack.

“Of course, you don’t. You never understand,” Leo seethed, getting as close to Corrin’s face as possible. “You have never understood from the moment you were dragged here. You don’t belong here. You never have.”

Leo knew that what he was saying was an extension of the truth. In that moment his anger was burning so hot that he couldn’t stop his inferiority complex slip through the cracks. He hated how Corrin always got the attention and praise from his older siblings while he struggled to be something of worth in their eyes. Yet Corrin was always the perfect little angel that could do no wrong.

Leo grit his teeth together harshly, looking down on the royal who was crying on the floor.

“H-How can you be so cruel?” they asked, looking up at Leo defencelessly.

“You… honestly think me to be cruel in this situation?” Leo asked, laughing at the accusation. “How am I the cruel one? I’ve always lived in your shadow. Damned from the day you showed up here!”

He struggled to keep his voice down, and he knew if he was too loud Xander would come running to Corrin’s aid, and that thought made his anger burn hotter.

He then walked away from Corrin and retrieved his tome from the table near the fire place. His eyes darted back to Corrin, who was struggling to get up off the stone floor. He opened the pages of the tome, and Corrin soon found themselves entangled in thorny vines piercing into them as they were lifted into the air.

“Its about time someone taught you your place,” Leo said quietly, flipping through the tome.

“L-Leo please! I don’t understand!” Corrin yelled, pleading for mercy.

“You soon will,” Leo said, his words practically dripping in malice.

Before he could do anything, just as predicted Xander came rushing into the room. Leo’s panic caused the vines to retract and drop Corrin against the floor. The damage was already done. They were bleeding all over from the thorns and Leo knew that Xander would most likely never forgive him for this.

“Corrin! What happened between you two?!” Xander yelled. Much to Leo’s surprise, Xander didn’t immediately pass the blame onto him, yet he saw Corrin tangled in Brynhildr’s vines. Something was wrong but Leo wasn’t about to bite the hand that fed him.

“All… I did was check up on Leo,” Corrin replied, looking at Leo with the eyes of a wounded animal.

“No, you didn’t. You keep saying you don’t understand what you did but you very well know what you did!” Leo yelled without thinking.

“Leo that’s enough!” Xander boomed. Leo froze.

“X-Xander it wasn’t unprovoked!” Leo yelled in attempts to defend himself.

“I said that’s enough!” Xander yelled, louder than before.

“I hate you! You always pick their side!” Leo yelled in retaliation.

Xander stared at Leo in shock. It took Leo a second to realize what he had just said. He said that he hated his brother. How could he say such a thing?

“Leo,” Xander said, all the anger in his voice fading. “I-I’m sorry.”

The guilt immediately hit Leo hard enough to make the pain in his chest somewhat unbearable. He leaned against a chest of drawers in the room and clenched the fabric against his chest again. Xander’s immediate reaction surprised Leo. He told Corrin to leave and turned his attention to Leo.

“W-What are you doing?” Leo asked, struggling to talk amongst the waves of pain.

Xander didn’t answer. There was some level of realization in Xander’s eyes as he aided Leo back to his bed. He took Leo’s injured hand carefully and guided him to the foot of the bed and had him sit down.

“Are you able to explain a few things to me?” Xander asked, sitting down next to him.

Leo felt anxiety build up in his chest.

“Wh-what do you need me to explain?” Leo asked.

“I remember things… that have never happened,” Xander said, looking down at the stone floor. “Why is this Leo? Is this magic of some kind? Is that also why your hand looks like its rotting?”

Leo avoided the question by remaining silent. Xander tapped Leo’s shoulder gently to remind him that he needed to answer.

“I… came back in time. I’ve had to explain this three times now,” Leo sighed. “I’m beginning to fear that this is slowly killing me now.”

Xander lifted up Leo’s hand. “Can you still feel my touch?”

“Yes,” Leo replied, clenching and unclenching his hand. “But I don’t think I’ll be able to keep this up for much longer,” Leo’s gaze shifted to Xander.

“I need you to kill me.”

Xander stood up abruptly, knocking the table over in the process.

“W-What do you mean kill you?!” He yelled in dismay. “I could never do that to you! You’re my brother!”

“Xander please…” Leo begged. “I need to restart.”

“R-Restart what?” Xander asked, still in shock.

“I need to be in a time where Corrin refuses to make a decision. Otherwise I’m just doomed.”

“Leo… you’re asking the impossible of me,” Xander said, placing his hands on Leo’s shoulders. “You know I could never do anything to hurt you like this. I may get angry and do things I don’t mean but I would never do something… like this.”

“If I do it myself everything will end,” Leo said solemnly. “It’s a breach of the contract if I do that. It was the same with summoning Faceless. If any harm came to the creator they would too cease to exist.”

Leo laughed to himself sadly “You know its funny. I never once thought that in my life I would be begging for death.”

“Don’t say it like that!” Xander yelled, his grip on Leo’s shoulders becoming firmer. “Never… say something like that.”

“I really need you to though Xander,” Leo placed his own blackened hand on Xander’s. “If you don’t then this will only get worse. And if you’re looking for someone to blame for this decision, you can blame Corrin since its their decision that makes me desperate for a redo.”

Xander closed his eyes tight and turned away from Leo. Leo realized he was asking the impossible but he knew of a way to make Xander do what he wished.

“Do I need to become a traitor to Nohr? So you can put your country first?” Leo asked.

“What is that supposed to mean!?” Xander exclaimed.

“It means that if… if I do something to betray Nohr then you won’t have any difficulty in killing me,” Leo said. The words tasted awful to him.

“Leo you know I can’t-“

“No you can. You’ve always put country first! You’re the crown prince Xander I know you better than this!” Leo yelled, standing up from his bed.

“Don’t talk to me that way!” Xander retaliated.

“Then please…” Leo begged.

Leo looked up at his brother with sullen eyes. No matter what he did he knew that he couldn’t sway Xander to do what he wished. He had trouble doing something like that since they were little.

“…What would the charge be?” Xander asked after a good minute of silence.

“Pardon…?” Leo asked in response.

“If I were to… do what you wished… what charge would you place on your own head,” Xander had difficulty saying it. He didn’t want to convict his brother of something he didn’t do.

“Attempted murder. I had every intention to kill Corrin earlier,” Leo said, pointing at the small bloodstain on the rug by the door.

Xander sighed sadly and drew his sword. His fingers trembled on the hilt of the blade and he drew it painfully slow.

“T-Then I suppose I have no choice,” he said quietly, trying his best to play his part in the act. “On your knees.”

Leo did as he was told and knelt on the ground. He knew exactly what Xander was playing at, and he knew that this was the only way he’d be able to do what he had asked.

“Thank you Xander,” Leo said, looking up at Xander one last time.

It was painful to see Xander struggle. He was in tears. Leo knew what he was doing was incredibly selfish, but if he had tried to do anything else in this timeline he would doom his family again. He couldn’t let that happen. He knew he would feel pain in the next iteration but that didn’t matter.

Xander hesitated. His hands continued to tremble holding the blade. Eventually he sheathed it again and Leo looked up at him in betrayal.

“Leo I can’t,” Xander said, tossing the sheathed blade aside. “I can’t do something like this.”

“Xander please-“

“I told you I can’t do it Leo!” Xander yelled. “I refuse to hurt my own family! And I refuse to let you do something wreckless!”

“What if I told you I’m not the brother you grew up with?!” Leo yelled back, struggling to stand up. “I betrayed Nohr! I killed my own countrymen! My actions got my older sister killed! Isn’t that enough of a reason!?”

“What?” Xander looked at Leo with shock splashed across his face. “When did you-“

“What does it matter when it happened?! Don’t you have memories of the opera house?! Of Niles killing Takumi?! Of Niles killing me!?” Leo yelled.

“I… I don’t remember any of that Leo…” Xander said.

“Fine you know what?” Leo asked, picking up his tome. “If you won’t do it I’ll get a guard to do it. Doesn’t matter.”

As Leo attempted to leave the room, Xander grabbed his arm painfully and pulled him back into the room.

“I won’t let you do that!” Xander cried.

“You’re dooming me this way!” Leo shook his arm to get out of Xander’s grip. “If this continues my body will rot! Don’t you know that magic is costly?! Why do you think Camilla’s eye is damaged?! Why do you think Iago looks like a walking corpse!?” Leo became incredibly upset with Xander. He treaded in territory he knew he shouldn’t have.

“You’ve never touched black magic so how would you know what it does to a person!?” Leo then freed his arm and pushed Xander away, tears starting to build in his eyes.

“I’m begging you for one thing Xander and you won’t… you won’t help me,” he kicked the bedframe and turned to his brother, eyes stinging. “If you really loved me you would do this for me.”

Xander’s anger began to boil over. He had been clenching his hands the entire time, and Leo was half-heartedly hoping that it would be enough for him to actually act. Xander struck Leo once he was certain that Leo was finished spouting his disrespectful words. Leo fell against his bed, hand to his cheek. That was probably the hardest Xander had ever hit him.

“Don’t you dare accuse me of that. And don’t you dare make it seem like I turn a blind eye to what this kingdom has to do in order to keep itself from falling. If anyone were to know how black magic affects us, I would know the most. Since I have watched you be forced by Iago to perform heinous tasks to keep this kingdom alive. I have even seen you use that cursed magic to eliminate your own mother, whom you hated with every fibre of your being. Some of the uses are selfish while the others are not. You are proving to me that the way you use it is for selfish gain. I won’t be a part of this.” Xander picked up his sword and turned to the door.

“If you ever ask me to do that again I won’t. In fact, I will do everything in my power to keep you here. You never ask your own flesh and blood to do something like take your life away you foolish boy.”

Xander slammed the door shut and left his words echoing in Leo’s head. It wasn’t a selfish gain. He was trying to save lives and amend what he had done. He hugged his tome close to his chest and curled up on his bed once more.

“Do I have to pray for a miracle?” he asked the open air, choking on a sob caught in his throat. “All I want to do is save him and it seems the entire world is against me. Where am I going wrong in my magic? Do I have to offer more to get things right?”

Leo buried his aching face into a pillow and silently hoped for something he had never believed in before.

A miracle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... is right.  
>  No i joke that is just something i thought would be funny.  
> OKay i listen to the made in abyss soundtrack for like 90% of writing this and it was A TRIP lemme tell you.  
> Also im sorry for the long wait, i just started school again and im a STEM major so yknow what that means!  
> PAIN! SUFFERING! And long hiatuses between chapters....  
> I honestly hope it wont get that bad but i will try my best to at least have a new chapter every month. I'm so sorry i made you guys wait for this one but thank you for sticking by me!  
> Again if you wanna support me with my hectic life my ko-fi is always open and i also take commissions! If you wish for links just send me a message and i'd be happy to point you in the right direction.  
> Thank you all so much and im sorry for the pain in this chapter hahaha


	13. The Truth

Leo had stayed in bed for what seemed like days. Niles had tried to check up on him, but he had kept the door locked. The hard part of doing what he was doing was that he hadn’t not thought about the possibilities of making his death look like an accident. He had multiple thoughts about how the world wouldn’t matter without him in it, but he was able to push them aside through logic.

Now was the hardest.

He felt as though he could confide in no one. He couldn’t ask Niles to do anything for him due to the irony in it, and Niles would never let him live in down. Odin was just plain unable to cause him any harm. Corrin was an idiot, Elise would default to emotional distress and Camilla would outright refuse. It wasn’t like he could ask any other retainers either, although Peri wouldn’t be too hard to convince. Leo had gone through several different possibilities in his head but he knew nothing was good enough, and him doing it himself could break the loop entirely. He wasn’t that down trodden to do such a thing, but he was damn near desperate to reset the time loop.

He spent a few minutes staring at his hand. He could have burnt a hole in it he was staring so hard. It began to hurt when he realized what Corrin siding with Nohr meant for Takumi. He knew that Anankos would take complete control of him again. He knew how that kind of possession worked as well. Iago had told him many times. The power tries to convince the conduit to die or causes them to do direct harm so that the entity can have complete control.

Leo’s eyes began to sting. He knew that Anankos would try to get Takumi to kill himself and that was a thought that Leo could not take. He sat up slowly in bed, feeling pain coursing through him as he did so. The pain in his chest grew with his thoughts constantly going back to how Takumi’s suffering was probably so much worse. They had worked so hard together to work his mental strength up so that something like that would never happen ever again, and it had been ripped away from them in one fell swoop. Takumi was back at square one and there was almost nothing Leo could do without influencing Takumi on his own with magic, which was something he swore he would never do to him.

But the thought of fixing all that had happened with magic was very appealing. He could easily banish Anankos and have Takumi be under _his_ control, much like how Iago had done to him in the past. The thought was so pleasing and hopeful, but it would cause much more harm than good. But it might have caused him more harm than Takumi and could force a reset. Everything was temporary anyway, and as much as it hurt his pride to ask Iago for help or even work for him in the slightest.

He struggled out of bed and shed his pajamas. He looked in a small mirror at the bandages across his chest. He raised an eyebrow at the sheer amount of covering that was done to the wound, but he then recalled what Odin had told him. Apparently, it had seemed like he had died on the battlefield as he returned to the beginning of the time loop. He moved the bandage down to reveal the wound. It too had the black colouration around it similar to his hand. He dropped the mirror in shock and fell back against his bed.

“A-Am I really running out of time?” Leo asked the open air, his eyes still on the broken mirror on the stone floor. He grabbed his tome from the bed and flipped through it to where he thought the spell was. He eventually came across a bloodstained page he could only assume was from the first go around. He quickly skimmed through the words, many not in English but in the older Nohrian languages.

It soon became evident that he did indeed have a time limit. The more times that he or Takumi had died, more the and more the spell would start to have a toll on his body. Any wounds sustained from previous timelines would affect him, and possibly Takumi too. He couldn’t wait for the perfect moment or the perfect timeline anymore he had to hope that the next loop would be the last one.

He quickly threw on a woolen shirt and pair of pants and rushed out of his room with his tome in hand. He soon regretted the decision as every step against the stone floor sent a wave of pain through his chest and legs. He had to ignore it as he made his way to the basement of the castle. He knew his way fairly well from childhood.

The doors to his chamber were dark oak, engraved with several different runes. Leo shuddered as he placed his hand on the door. With little effort he was able to push it open to see Iago at a desk, reading a book by candle light. Leo stepped back away from the door and took a moment to think about what he was doing. He was willingly seeking Iago’s help again. Iago had been his tutor since he was young and had abused his position to have him do heinous magical acts due to his talent. Was Leo really willing to set aside his pride and seek help from the man who pushed him to death several times in his youth?

He then remembered what his goal was. He wanted to seek death. He knew it was a very possible solution to the problem he had been presented with. He swallowed his pride and pushed the door open.

“Iago,” Leo said sternly.

“Hrm? What is it _you_ want?” Iago seethed, not taking his gaze away from the book in front of him. Leo soon realized that Iago was actively using his magic as a conduit to allow Anankos to possess Takumi. Leo felt rage build behind his eyes, but he tried his best to hide his intentions.

“I wish to have control over the second prince of Hoshido,” he said, no demanded.

“Has your father given you permission to do such a thing?” Iago asked, a sinister grin crawling across his face. Leo could hear the toxins in Iago’s voice practically dripping all over him.

“Let’s face it Iago,” Leo said, testing a theory. “We both know that I would be able to cause Hoshido more harm with the younger prince under my control.”

Iago paused his reading and directed his attention to Leo in the doorway. He closed the tome and eyed Leo carefully. Leo didn’t like how he was reading Iago’s expression.

“I suppose your right,” Iago admitted, harshly shoving the tome directly into Leo’s wounded chest. “My talents are best used elsewhere.” Iago’s voice held sickening amusement as he saw Leo crumble to the ground after hitting him with the tome. “Your father holds high expectations of you.”

Leo struggled to get up from the ground, gripping onto the tome harshly as he felt the waves of pain pulse through his body. He dared not make a sound and give Iago any kind of satisfaction. He stayed silent as Iago left his chamber to seek audience with Garon.

“I’d suggest you return to your own chamber milord,” Iago snickered. “You look awfully worse for wear.”

“Silence you knave,” Leo ordered, struggling to get the words out. “Don’t forget that I hold authority over you.”

Iago chuckled. “Since when have you ever had that?”

Leo ignored the comment and used the door frame to balance himself as he got up off the ground. He felt a part of his pride shatter inside his heart. He hated how Iago had been _right_. Iago had always had control over Leo since he was a child and manipulated the fact that Leo didn’t know he could fight back. He hated the sickening feeling of being wrong even if he wanted to believe he was right with every fibre of his being.

He looked at the altar that Iago had been using inside the menacing room. He knew this room all too well, more than he liked. He could see the summoning circle on the ground that was used to create Faceless from the mountains of dead bodies that Iago had kept hidden in Leo’s passageways. The entire room stank of rotting flesh and it nearly knocked Leo over as he walked further into the room. He could see just beyond the circle where the candlelight ended a small mound of putrefied flesh in the centre of the circle. Upon further inspection Leo was horrified with what he discovered.

Iago had been sacrificing the people of Nohr to create more soldiers instead of using the natural death rate as he had been ordered to do in the past. The body in the circle was that of a child.

Iago had been killing the people who lived in the slums just outside the castle and had been focusing primarily on women and children. In other words, he was creating artificial soldiers from those who couldn’t have fought for Nohr.

“Have you turned a blind eye to this Xander?” Leo asked the open air, sickened by the sight. “Or have you just never told me? Or have you never even been told?”

Leo tried his best to ignore the disgusting and horrifying sight, focusing on the current task at hand. He placed the tome that Iago had handed him on the altar, and placed Brynhildr next to it. He had hoped that using his own magic could prevent any pain that Takumi could have felt from doing what he was doing. It tore him up inside to think that he would be single handily responsible for what Anankos could do to Takumi in this timeline. The entire situation had felt so incredibly wrong to him. He closed his eyes and silently apologized as he opened the cursed tome.

The name had been embossed on the front of the book, and had been written in brown ink on the first page. It took Leo a second to realize that the ‘ink’ was actually blood. He shivered. Could something like that truly be archival?

“Kriemhild,” He said quietly as he flipped through the pages. Something felt odd about it. He closed the tome to see Brynhildr glowing behind the cover. Something was incredibly wrong was the first thought to cross Leo’s mind.

“Wait a minute,” Leo stepped back, pulling Brynhildr from the altar. “Why the hell do I remember this tome?”

He didn’t want to touch it again. Everything about the tome felt incredibly wrong and touching it again could prove to be troublesome. Several thoughts crossed his mind. Iago had always fought Leo on any subject that revolved around who had been stronger magically. Why did he give it up so easily now? Everything felt wrong.

He knew that his father possessed a cursed weapon that had formed from spite and had split itself from Siegfried. He also knew of Skadi, the cursed bow that became of Fuujin Yuumi. Each legendary weapon had a cursed counterpart, as they had been forged to defeat Anankos. It made sense to Leo that each of the weapons would have a cursed counterpart for Anankos to bestow on those to defend him. Bolverk was to Siegfried, Skadi was to Fuujin Yuumi, so that must have meant that Kriemhild could have been-

“No! No that’s impossible,” Leo yelped, his thoughts racing. “Theres no way that he would be able to use it if it was meant for me… He couldn’t even touch Brynhildr without it rejecting him…”

The conclusions that Leo would come up with didn’t fit the patterns that were previously in place. He glanced at the door to see Iago standing in the doorway and the rage that he had felt earlier began to burn hotter behind his eyes.

“Whats the meaning of this?!” He yelled, pointing at the tome on the altar. The corpses in the room were the least of his concern at that moment.

“I expected nothing less from the self-proclaimed genius to figure the pattern out,” Iago said, clapping as he entered the room. “Yes, indeed that tome was meant for you to use. You were to use it to take control of the second prince of Hoshido, but your father doubted your ability to actually do it and doubted your faith in Anankos.” He picked the tome up from the altar and went to hand it to Leo. Leo, in turn, backed away from the sorcerer, horrified at the truth of what that tome actually meant.

“So… Bolverk would have eventually been passed down to Xander as well?” Leo asked, struggling to keep his voice steady.

“Oh no,” Iago said, snickering in the sinister way he always did. “For you see, Anankos has no use for your brother. Or any of your siblings actually.”

Leo’s heart sank. “What… are you talking about?”

“You see, Nohr has had a few problems ever since the war with Hoshido began. People were dying so we turned them into soldiers. The resources of this land were being taken so fast by the growing population so it of course had to dwindle some how,” Iago pointed to the pile of corpses in the corner.

“But we had other trade routes! Not just to Hoshido! Father cut all those off!” Leo yelled in defiance.

“By Anankos’ suggestion of course,” Iago said, as if he were a speaker for the silent dragon. “Why bother keeping old trade routes when we can take the other land on this continent by force?”

“What do I have to do with any of this?” Leo seethed.

“Well as you said that you ‘have more magical talent’ than I,” Iago explained, mocking the way Leo spoke in the middle of his sentence. “So that would mean that _you_ would be the primary mage of Nohr.”

Leo shivered at the thought. He knew the pain that Takumi went under when Anankos took control of him. And Anankos wanted… him. He hated the thought enough to use Brynhildr against Iago. Iago, in turn, brought up a wall from the ground to stop the thorns from hitting him.

“Careful young prince! If I’m harmed that counts as treason!” Iago taunted from behind the rock wall.

Leo grinned menacingly. Something within him that was keeping him sane had snapped. He wanted nothing more than to tear the sorcerer apart. He thought the idea to be quite amusing, enough to cause him to laugh under his breath.

He grabbed a dagger from the table near him and waited for the wall to come down. Silence filled the room for a couple minutes, then Iago brought the wall down. Before Iago could even utter a word, Leo lunged at him with the dagger. Unable to defend himself, Iago fell to the floor with Leo pinning him down. Leo held the dagger against Iago’s throat, a dark smile twisted across his face.

“Treason you say?” he spat, laughing to himself. “Well is that so?”

“W-What in the gods’ names has come over you?! What are you doing!?” Iago yelped pathetically as Leo pressed the blade closer into his neck.

“Mmm, what do you think I’m doing?” Leo asked playfully, his laughter sounding more and more sinister.

“H-Have you lost your mind?!” Iago yelled, struggling underneath the prince.

“Oh! Haha! You think so?!” Leo laughed, holding the knife directly above the mask that Iago had. “It wouldn’t be a surprise!”

He placed the knife against the ceramic piece and began to pry it off Iago’s face. He soon came to the realization that it had been melted to his face. In sickening satisfaction, Leo began to use the knife as leverage to pull the mask off Iago’s face. He laughed over the sorcerer’s blood curdling screams.

“It only takes so much you know!” Leo taunted as he continued to pull at the ceramic piece. He pulled at it so sickeningly slowly that it must have been torture for Iago. And that thought was incredibly amusing to Leo.

“Enough mental torture in your life just makes you snap!” Leo said, timing the word ‘snap’ to pulling off the mask entirely. What was underneath was disgusting. It was hauntingly similar to what had happened to Camilla’s eye when she had used the necromancy magic for the first time. Made him think that what happened to her could have been Iago’s fault after all.

Leo plunged the knife into Iago’s rotted eye socket and twisted it painfully. Iago continued to scream and wail in agony as Leo played around with what he could do with the dagger. Blood began to splatter onto his face and clothes as he found veins and arteries in Iago’s face and severed them. He wanted Iago’s death to be incredibly painful and slow, almost appropriate for how he had been torturing Leo mentally and physically by over extending his magical abilities as a child.

When Iago stopped screaming, Leo didn’t stop dragging the dagger across the corpse underneath him. Soon his laughter was the only thing that echoed in the bowels of the castle’s dungeon. He wondered if anyone could hear him, and his thought was soon satisfied as Niles came running down the hallway.

“Milord what are you doing?!” Niles yelled, seeing Leo plunge the dagger over and over into Iago’s rotting eye socket, and soon into the other. Niles was clearly startled by what Leo had been doing, struggling to bring himself to stop Leo’s actions. He eventually mustered the strength to grab Leo’s wrist and squeeze it hard enough for Leo to drop the bloodied dagger.

“What are you doing!?” Leo yelled, struggling against Niles. “Unhand me! That’s an order!”

“No!” Niles yelled, pulling Leo by the wrist off the corpse of the sorcerer.

“Unhand me!” Leo yelled louder, almost clawing at Niles’ hand. Niles stared at Leo in horror. His face and chest had been covered in Iago’s blood. Even his hair was stained red.

He let go of Leo’s wrist and soon grabbed Leo’s shoulders, shoving him against the wall.

“What is wrong with you?!” Niles yelled, his voice cracking. “What are you doing down here?! And why were you…” Niles trailed off, unable to say the words aloud.

“He had to die,” Leo said without hesitation. “He had to suffer and he had to die.”

“Leo please snap out of it!” Niles yelled, smacking Leo across the face. Soon after Leo looked at him with hurt eyes, and Niles had felt as though he had kicked a puppy.

“I did what I had to… He was killing innocent people Niles,” Leo said, calming down from his fit of mania. “I was half heartedly hoping that he would kill me in defence but here we are.”

“What are you talking about?” Niles asked, keeping his voice calm for Leo. He struggled to keep his concern hidden.

“Niles… could you do it for me?” Leo asked.

“Wha-“ Niles stared at Leo in shock, unable to even form a complete sentence.

“I realize the irony in it,” Leo laughed sadly. He realized his mood swings at that moment must have been hard and fast enough to deeply confuse Niles. “But look.”

Leo showed Niles his hand, and the black colour that had been emitting from his wound had spread far enough to reach his wrist. “Please do this for me Niles.”

“You… kept me locked out of your room for days, came down here to do something heinous, killed that bastard in a violent and disgusting way… and that’s all you can say to me?” Niles asked, his grip on Leo’s shoulder’s loosening.

“There’s a very good reason for it!” Leo yelped in response.

“Then what is it Leo?!” Niles yelled, dropping the honorific on purpose. His concern and anger was enough to lose any sense of duty to keep up appearances.

Leo avoided eye contact and his gaze dropped to the floor.

“Leo!” Niles yelled even louder than before.

“I guess I’ve completely lost my mind,” Leo laughed, attempting to walk way from Niles. He slammed his hand against the rock wall and stopped Leo dead in his tracks.

“You are not walking away from me,” Niles said through his teeth. Leo finally looked up at Niles to see something he thought he would never see. Niles was concerned enough to _cry_.

Leo’s eyes widened and the weight of everything he had done had suddenly dropped on him as thought it were a ton of bricks. He had been acting selfishly the entire time. His actions were only benefitting him and Takumi and dooming just about everyone else. He had been hurting everyone around him through the process of trying to restore everything he had lost. He hadn’t thought for a single minute about how his actions were affecting everyone else.

“Niles I…” Leo trailed off. He felt as though he didn’t even deserve to look at his retainer.

Without a single word, Niles pulled Leo gently into his arms. It seemed that it was out of understanding. Leo could only half-heartedly rest his head against Niles’ shoulder in response. He closed his eyes, enjoying a moment where he could just completely let go.

“Your magic is tearing you apart,” Niles muttered. Leo opened his eyes wide and looked up at Niles in surprise.

“I realize what you’ve had to go through now,” he said, pulling away from Leo and placing a hand on his wounded chest.

“I did that… didn’t I?” Niles said, sounding incredibly remourseful.

“You… didn’t mean to,” Leo said.

Suddenly it dawned on him. Niles didn’t remember anything earlier, but he did after having proper contact with him. The same thing happened with Xander in Cyrkensia. And once again the same thing happened to Takumi when he did so much as touch him.  

“Oh my gods I’ve found my answer,” Leo said quietly. Niles looked at him curiously, seeing that Leo had had some sort of epiphany.

“Niles you are brilliant!” Leo yelled, hugging onto his retainer tightly and nearly knocking him over in surprise.

“Good! Wait, what did I do?” Niles asked, even more confused than before.

“You helped me figure everything out,” Leo said, staring down at his hand. “You must know now that I’ll be sent to another timeline if I’m killed.”

“Its… still not an easy thing for me to do you know,” Niles said sheepishly.

“You have to do it. I’ll make things right I promise you I will. The next time around WILL be the last if I have anything to say about it,” Leo said, walking over to pick up the dagger.

“I… I can’t use that and you know why,” Niles said, refusing to take the dagger from Leo’s hands.

“I’m so sorry,” Leo said, looking down at Iago’s mangled face. “There are other daggers in the room.”

“Leo, as much as I believe you this is still crazy,” Niles said, folding his arms in frustration.

Leo sighed, and turned the dagger on himself. He had to take the risk.

“Apologize to Odin for me, okay?” Leo said, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Woah woah woah! Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” Niles yelled, trying to take the dagger out of Leo’s hands.

Before Leo could even do anything, a flash of light swallowed him and Niles disappeared into it.

Leo dropped the dagger out of shock as he was flung back in time.

He didn’t even have to do anything.

Someone had killed Takumi instead. Leo felt his chest become heavy, and it became hard to breathe.

What happened to him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Birthday Takumi you aren't even prominent in this chapter and you died off screen.  
> ALSO IM SO SORRY FOR THE LONG HIATUS I FINALLY GOT AROUND TO WRITING AND I LITERALLY WENT OFF AND DID THIS IN AN HOUR... Also the next loop WILL BE THE LAST... so we are reaching the end soon. Prolly like only 2-3 chapters left... Damn i love writing this... Anyway i hope that you guys enjoyed this chapter! Thank you for sticking by me despite my LONG ASS HIATUSES!!! As always, my commissions are open and my kofi is open for short drabbles so if you wanna support me please please consider doing so in those ways (oof)
> 
> EDIT: Okay just for the record... please dont comment on fics about writing others/finishing others? It literally makes me want to write them even less?? I didn't want to say anything because you prolly dont care about my life and whatever but like... when i started working on this chapter in October??? then midterms happened and then I GOT INTO A CAR ACCIDENT!!!!! ALSO i have problems with keeping things consistent! I don't mean to sound mean but like, if you want me to actually continue/finish something when i don't have the will/want to do it then like... throw money at me lmao? Because im a person with needs and whatnot? I'm struggling with school and even struggling to remember to FEED MYSELF and BUY GROCERIES because i literally have no money? why do you think im pushing commissions in these notes? I dont like doing that because i feel like im being annoying. Give things time please??? Thats all i ask? Even time i get a comment like "HEY DO THIS!" my immediate thought is "Haha no." Thats not how it works. I'm doing this because I WANT TO. I don't HAVE To do ANYTHING. I'm sorry if im sounding mean with this i just get so... annoyed with it? Like comment about the current fic if youre gonna comment on it. Its incredibly disheartening like... "oh i dont care about THIS FIC i want THE OTHER ONE".  
> TLDR: Don't comment "hey do this" because i wont do it. Unless of course money is thrown my way so i can actually take care of myself.


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